


I'm Trying to Reach You

by WashiPuppy



Series: Connections [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Awkward Flirting, Gen, Keith overthinks things, Lance makes bad decisions, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Paladin Friendships, Shiro's a bit of a mother hen, hints of ships, inuendo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-20 10:02:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8245165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WashiPuppy/pseuds/WashiPuppy
Summary: The mind is a tenacious thing. Once it grabs hold of a thought, a memory, or a problem, it can be hard to convince it to let go.Pidge has her drive to find her family, though right now she has these communication codes that could help her do that.Shiro has his past, though right now he has his a lion asking him for help and teammates who won't tell him what's going on in their heads.Lance has his doubts.And Keith... Well, he's convinced that Hunk is some kind of Sex God who has slept with both Shiro and Lance.Now, how to prove that?Meanwhile, Hunk is just doing his best to look out for everyone. It's like herding cats.





	1. To Wake and Call Your Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that Keith is looking for it, he can see the signs. Hunk touches Lance throughout training and looks out for Shiro, clapping him on the shoulder when things go well. Shiro is relaxed and comfortable, smiling at the team. Lance... well, Lance is a little quiet and distant, but he's using that new nickname and making Shiro blush.
> 
> What exactly is going on with those three?

Keith was not a fan of overly complex plans. He never had been, preferring to react on instinct and let his body's own muscle memory act before his brain had time to trip him up. But that didn't mean he couldn't come up with a plan, and a pretty good one at that - he absolutely could. It usually involved starting with changing the conditions of a fight to be in his favour, then a big empty spot in the middle mentally labelled 'go with your gut', finally followed by some idea for how he'd get away once he had done what he needed to.

The middle part was especially important. After all, "No battleplan ever survives contact with the enemy." Or something like that; Keith couldn't actually remember for sure who said it, but it had proven itself to be true.

But this time, Keith had no idea how to change the initial conditions to be in his favour. He needed to get a read on the situation, gather as much data as possible, and work out a plan of attack. Then he could get an answer to his question.

Was Hunk some kind of Sex God, and had he used his powers on Shiro and Lance?

The rational part of his brain helpfully pointed out that this was a stupid question, and that he was definitely overthinking this. Yet he couldn't shake the idea now that it was in his head.

Morning training had moved from increasingly ridiculous obstacle courses (The snake-course had been utterly pointless, as far as Keith was concerned. When would they need to run anywhere while all tethered to each other at the waist? And why did touching anyone else in the line have to be an automatic fail?) to Gladiator survival matches, which thankfully gave Keith some respite from his thoughts.

But now the team were slumped on the floor, Coran handing out drinks and encouragement in equal measure while everyone took a break. This left Kieth's mind free to study his team-mates and read way too much into every little gesture. Like Lance leaning towards Hunk and Shiro as they spoke, or Hunk's hand on Shiro's shoulder as they walked, or Shiro looking at Lance as though he were trying to figure something out.

Perfectly innocent stuff that he was all of a sudden noticing.

Shiro gave Coran a smile and nod as he accepted the drink, relaxed in a way that Keith realised he hadn't been for a while. Which in turn made Keith realise that he himself also hadn't been relaxed in a while, even before yesterday's sudden revelation. When was the last time he relaxed?

_"Maybe Hunk could help?"_

Kieth ignored the memory of Pidge's voice, hoping that the heat he felt flooding his face would be written off as an after effect of training. Although... Keith could ask Pidge if she thought Lance and Hunk were... what, together? Or if she thought Shiro might have... also... with Hunk and Lance... 

Well, Keith needed to phrase the question better than that before he asked. Pidge probably wouldn't laugh. Much.

"Are we done for now?" 

Speaking of. Pidge had pulled her helmet off and was running her hands through her hair, teasing it out. 

"Not quite," Coran answered. Lance groaned and flopped dramatically sideways. Coran paid him only enough mind to drop a drink on his chest, eliciting a small "Oof" noise before before he handed another drink to Hunk with an encouraging grin, saying something that Keith didn't catch, but that made Hunk blush and smile widely in response.

Shiro raised an eyebrow at Lance and nudged him in the side with his foot, which Lance batted weakly at, hand hovering in the air over Shiro's ankle before he let it fall aside. Keith's eyes were immediately drawn to the movement (had Lance gone to rest a hand on Shiro's leg, but changed his mind? Or was that just a shoo-ing motion done really sloppy?), then across to Hunk who poked Lance in the other side, making him flinch. Keith had noticed that Hunk was touching Lance a lot more than usual. That lent some support to Keith's theory that any relationship might be a recent thing, then. Unless this was some kind of reassurance thing? Thinking about it now, Lance had seemed a little more distant lately.

This was getting ridiculous. He needed to focus on something else.

"In a hurry to get back to your project?" Coran asked Pidge, handing the last drink to her with a knowing smirk. Keith suddenly remembered his own drink and took a long swig.

Pidge nodded. "Seriously, I'm so, so close to getting it to work. I know I am. I just have a couple of small things to work out."

"Anything I can help with?" Hunk asked, draining the last of his drink. Pidge considered it, and Keith quietly began choking despite knowing that Hunk DEFINITELY wasn't offering that kind of help. Keith was just quietly losing his mind.

"Maybe. An extra pair of eyes and someone to talk out loud to might help." Pidge leaned forwards with a glare. "But no touching anything I don't tell you to touch, no pressing random buttons and you bring the brain food stash." She settled back.

"I promise, barring an emergency, you will be free to work on that all afternoon." Allura spoke, immediately drawing all attention to her. She moved to stand just outside of the group, a data pad of some kind in one hand. Keith found himself sitting up straighter, despite knowing he hadn't been doing anything wrong. Not obviously wrong, at least. Speculating on your team-mates sex lives was probably wrong to some degree.

Even Lance pulled himself up to a casual reclined pose, rather than the discarded puppet sprawl he had going on before.

"But first, I'd like to try something new," Allura continued. Shiro sent Lance a preemptive Look, getting in before he'd even made his "about to say something dumb" face.

Lance had a whole range of 'Something Dumb Just Occurred To Me' faces. Keith was still cataloging them all. Lance... said nothing. Didn't even look like he noticed the warning. Odd.

"I hate it when you say that," Hunk groaned and gave Allura a clearly unconvinced look. "Every time you say that, it ends badly." 

Allura spared him a small smile before looking down at her data pad. "I've been digging through the old team training program suite, and I've found something that I think will benefit all of you. It's a Tag Out exercise."

Keith met Pidge's eyes for a moment, confirming that neither of them had any idea what that was.

"Only one Paladin will be on the field at a time." Coran began filling them in. "All other Paladins will be outside of the field, watching. The program will adapt to your strengths and weaknesses until it finds a strategy that you're not individually capable of beating. When that happens -" Coran held out a hand and slapped it with his other hand loudly - "You tag out with another Paladin who CAN beat that strategy. No other Paladin is allowed on the field until their hand is slapped."

"The idea of this exercise is to recognise your own weaknesses, and to know when you need someone else to help." Allura finished.

"At least, according to the blurb." Coran added cheerfully.

Keith felt cold dread rush through him. This was going to suck. Hard. 

He knew perfectly well that he tended to forget his limits and let anger (Blood Lust, his mind substituted against his will) take over. He was used to doing things himself and assuming he could do everything, which he'd mostly managed to do. More or less. Either way, he knew he was so used to thinking only in terms of himself that he often forgot that he had a team of people with other skills.

He half expected Allura to be looking directly at him, like she'd picked this just for him. Except... she was looking directly at Lance, whose forced casual position was completely undermined by a look of tension and... shame? Whatever it was flashed across his face too quick for Keith to get a proper read on it.

"It's also about knowing what skills your teammates have," Coran grinned behind his moustache. 

"And knowing when you personally have a skill that can help, then convincing your team that you can offer that." Allura finished, looking around at the rest of the team. Shiro looked thoughtful, while Pidge and Hunk both looked at each other, wearing matching expressions of trepidation.

"Hey, easy done. I'm full of skill," Lance spoke through the tension that was starting to build, a ridiculous smirk plastered on his face.

"You can't be 'Full of Skill' Lance. That's not a thing." Pidge admonished, hauling herself upwards with a huff.

"Then how is 'Skillful' a word?" Lance countered.

"Because it is, and that's not how words work." Pidge kicked at Lance's arm as she walked past, knocking it out from under his head. He rolled with it onto his back and stuck out his tongue. 

Shiro stood, offering out a hand to help Hunk to his feet before doing the same to Lance, almost flinging Lance upright and drawing a surprised laugh from him.

"Woah there, Big Cat," Lance grinned, steadying himself on his feet. Shiro huffed in response, smiling apologetically and...

... Blushing?

Keith's brain stalled. He blinked once, knowing perfectly well that he was staring, but right now a blink was as close as he could manage to looking away. It could have been a flush from standing up and pulling other people up. Otherwise, Lance had just called Shiro 'Big Cat', and Shiro had blushed.

Also, where had 'Big Cat' come from? Had he heard that before? Had anyone else heard that? Why did no one comment?

Keith was sure he saw Lance hold on to Shiro a little longer than needed before pulling his hands away. He needed to stop staring. Immediately. 

"This is going to suck, isn't it?" Hunk groaned, echoing Keith's earlier thought and breaking him out of his trance. He curled his legs under him, standing in a single smooth motion and walked after the rest of the team.

Coran only nodded. "Of course! That's how you know it's helping."

* * *

Of course something would go wrong.

It started smoothly. Hunk volunteered to go first before Allura had the chance to volunteer someone, to which she seemed only mildly put out. Shiro was a little glad that someone volunteered, since apparently he was not allowed to go first.

None of them had any idea what to expect when a section of the training deck had shifted and developed artificial 'terrain' around him, but Hunk had gotten into the rhythm of it once the first Bot had been taken down.

The rest of the team had paced around the edges, trying to get a good view. Lance and Pidge in particular were shouting encouragement and warnings most of the time Hunk was in the field. The lone gunman Bot was followed by a small hoard that tried to overwhelm Hunk with sheer numbers, but given Hunk's usual Area Effect method of shooting, the program set that strategy aside pretty quick. It was only when one of the Bots took flight and began zipping quickly between blasts that Hunk ran for the perimeter to bail.

"Hunk! Tag me, I can totally take this one!" Lance called out, hand held up as though for a high five.

"Hunk, don't listen to him, he's an idiot," Pidge countered, cupping her hands to shout onto the field. "It's moving in a set pattern. I know what it's going to do."

"Sorry, Bro!" Hunk shouted, veering off towards Pidge. He slapped her hand as he passed, momentum carrying him off of the field to collide with the wall.

"Harsh!" Lance shouted.

Pidge slid to a stop behind one of the digitally generated 'Rocks', watching the Bot zip towards her before firing her Bayard's dagger right into it's path. The Bot collided with the blade, and Pidge triggered the electric current with a loud whoop as the bot sparked and fell.

"Alright, fair enough." Lance called from the sidelines, slightly sheepish.

The next iteration didn't fare much better against her, as Pidge ignored Keith's suggestion to tap out to him long enough to work out that she could use her Bayard to grapple up one of the larger digital rocks, exposing the more cover-focused flight pattern the next Bot had adopted. Lance and Hunk cheered loudly as she brought her blade down on it, punching it into oblivion.

The Bot changed strategy completely, this time attacking from below. The generated terrain raised the whole field up slightly, and the Bot took advantage of this to go 'Below' ground and attack, effectively removing Pidges ability to track it by sight. 

The first attack knocked Pidge off her vantage point, sending her rolling down the steep slope to the ground level of the field below. Shiro heard himself call out her name, voice joined by the rest of the team only to be cut off by Pidge rolling to her feet stiffly and holding a hand up for silence. Shiro could see Pidge's mind working overtime as she tried to detect any sign or sound that might indicate the Bot's location, but there was nothing until suddenly the Bot burst upwards, limbs spinning out and knocking Pidge's feet from under her. The next attack was at her head, knocking her helmet off.

Pidge looked around fearfully, unable to predict where the next attack would come from. She rolled away from a volley of laser fire that was launched from somewhere nearby and made for the nearest boundary.

Of course - she was looking for a pattern, but this time there was none. The Bot had switched to random attacks, and Pidge's fight reflexes weren't fast enough to keep up with it. She also lacked the weight to provide any resistance to its tripping attacks - when it lashed out, it sent her flying. The best people to tag out with in this situation were either Shiro or Kieth, and Shiro was the closest, even with Kieth running to get himself in a better position.

"Pidge!" Shiro called, dashing sideways along the barrier.

"Shiro! You got this?" Pidge replied, leaping over a rock and swerving towards him.

The Bot leaped out of the ground beside her, knocking her over. She rolled, turning just in time to watch the Bot drop back below ground level.

Matt turned back, reaching towards him, arm outstretched and eyes fearful. He was close; if Shiro could reach him, could grab his hand, they wouldn't be separated. They were trying to take Matt away, though he wasn't completely sure where. The only thing he could think was that if they took Matt, he would be left here alone. He couldn't do that. He couldn't let those monsters take him. He had to protect him from the horrible figures in robes that walked amongst the prisoners like they were inspecting livestock, selecting their specimens for study or... other tasks.

Shiro spotted the inconsistency quickly, much quicker than he normally did when hit by a flashback. They weren't like normal memories, not even the overwhelming ones that bought smells and emotions with it. Memories didn't completely obliterate the real world around you. His flashbacks were more like an hallucination, and it was only the continuity that gave any clue that he was not actually seeing Matt.

Everything was going well. Why wouldn't his mind just let things go well?

Shiro darted forwards just enough to reach Matt. _It wasn't Matt, he knew that. This was Pidge. This was Katie._ He pulled Matt in towards him, swinging the smaller man behind him to shield him with his body. _They were too small for Matt._

The robed figure glided towards him soundlessly, no indication that it even needed to step. _It wasn't there_. Matt let out a frightened gasp behind him. _He wasn't there._ He knew perfectly well that what he saw wasn't real. So why hadn't it faded yet?

Behind him, Matt tried to tug himself away from Shiro's grip. He stopped when Shiro didn't release him.

"Shiro!" He heard Kieth's voice, calling his name, and his mind warped it into Matt's voice behind him. But it was Kieth's voice, and Kieth hadn't been there. Keith was running towards him, he could hear his footstep on the training room floor, but his mind glossed over the noise. He felt like he was scrabbling, trying to rip away a membrane between himself and the real world to grab onto something from the now, something that would pull him out. He felt himself shake his head, trying to clear his vision.

"Shiro?" a closer voice, but not Pidge's... Lance's voice. He'd been nearby. _Lance wasn't here, some other being knew his name, was calling it out. Warning him not to resist._

No, he knew their voices. He just needed to grab onto them somehow.

"Come on Shiro, buddy, ease up." Lance's voice, quiet but with an edge of panic. He tried to turn towards it, but he couldn't seem to turn away from the robed figure before him. The smell of burnt wires and blood filled his senses, the fear and despair thick in the air around him. "Shiro? Come back to us." Dammit, he was trying! His mind tried to grip onto the voice, steadier and quieter than the scene he was in should have allowed. Warmth hovered over his arm, not touching him but enough to feel. "Easy, Big Cat."

That was it. That was new, recent, something he'd never been called before his escape. Something that placed him very firmly in the now. His mind grabbed onto it, pulled himself out of the past with a lion's roar and the feeling of flying. 

On instinct he moved, stepping forwards and crouching down low, arm alight. Behind him Pidge stepped back, Keith and Lance by her side in moments. He twisted, moving before he heard a sound, the first indication that the Bot was even there being the clang of metal on metal as his hand collided with it. It erupted into sparks.

"Yes!" Lance's fist shot into the air in triumph. "Damn, that was awesome!"

Shiro stood and turned to give a reassuring grin to his team. There was a 'thank you' on the tip of his tongue that died when he saw the group behind him. Lance looked excited and proud of him, but Keith was looking back and forth between himself and Lance, a strange expression on his face. Keith had been staring at most of the team all morning, so that wasn't too much of a surprise really, but this look was different. Less calculating, more... Shiro didn't know. Pidge was also staring at him, expression best described as 'complicated'.

"Pause the training!" Pidge shouted.

"Program paused," Coran answered from the observation room.

Pidge stepped forwards without hesitation. "Are you OK?" she asked. "What was it? What did you see?"

Shiro hesitated. Should he answer? He didn't really want to answer; it was only a moment, there was no important information in that flashback. His reluctance must have been clear, because Pidge stepped back and looked down, guilt written into her body language.

"You called me Matt."

Shiro froze. He hadn't even realised he'd spoken. Judging by the way both Lance and Keith whipped their heads around to look at him, they hadn't heard him. Hunk joined the group, moving to stand beside Lance and sharing a look with the blue paladin before looking at Shiro gently.

Shiro thought he understood it. If he didn't want to talk, Hunk would move everyone on. That was enough to ease the sudden tension in his body and make him want to at least say something.

"When... We were chosen as potential fighters for the arena," He began, haltingly, "Matt was picked first. They tried to take him away, and he reached out to me, like you did. I grabbed him, I... tried to protect him, keep him with me. So they brought me along too."

He looked over to Pidge, who looked back at him and offered up a watery smile. "Sorry," she said, a hand going up to her face to play with her glasses before she remembered she wasn't wearing them and moved her hand to her neck instead. "I know I shouldn't have pushed."

"Fair warning man, I'm about to hug you." Hunk spoke before, true to his word, he enveloped Shiro in a hug that nearly knocked him off balance. Shiro huffed and wriggled a bit, trying to readjust himself to free his arms up. Hunk let up enough for Shiro to pat him on the back fondly, hiding a smile behind Hunk's shoulder.

"Do you... want to stop training? Or keep going?" Keith asked uncertainly.

Shiro considered it. Stopping would be kind of nice, but... "No, I think I'm good to keep going," He decided at last. Keith scanned his face, but whatever he saw must have been OK, because he only nodded.

"Hunk, budy, you're gonna have to let go before the Bot starts up again." Lance leaned forwards, head tilted to try to catch Hunk's eye.

"Yeah. I think an attached Hunk might be too much of a handicap for even Shiro." Pidge added playfully.

"But I could be like a Tortoise Shell for him. Extra armour plating, and a Gun. Gun Tortoise." Hunk responded. Thinking about it now, this hug had gone on for a while. How does one gracefully exit a Hunk Hug?

"Tortoises aren't known for either their agility OR battle prowess." Pidge at least was able to suppress a laugh and respond completely straight faced.

"Aww," Hunk whined with fake disappointment. He pulled back, resting a hand on Shiro's shoulder briefly before stepping back to the group.

Shiro walked into the field and looked up to the viewing deck, just able to make out Allura and Coran leaning looking out over the group of them. He gave them a thumbs up.

There was nothing for a tick, and then - 

"I don't really know what that means," Coran's voice came over the speaker, "So I'm just going to un-pause the program, OK?"

He could hear Lance facepalming as the last shred of seriousness the moment might have had dissolved.

Shiro made it through a further four iterations of the Bot's strategy before finally having to tap out when the Bot became three Bots attacking from a distance. He traded with Lance, who made quick work of the smaller flying enemies.

Of course, Lance then stayed in too long. He started the next variation acting like his usual cocky show-off self, but his demeanour shifted to something more serious around the Bot's second adaption against him. It wasn't long before Hunk and Pidge's encouragement became warnings. This Bot used a combination of ranged firing and fast, close movements with some kind of energy staff, leaving Lance almost constantly on the defensive. 

"Stop being an ass and tag me in already!" Keith shouted, shadowing Lance from the sidelines. Lance scampered behind a digital rock as a volley of shots were fired at him.

"No, it's cool! I've TOTALLY got this!" He shouted back, returning fire. Any certainty in his voice was immediately undermined when the Bot swung around the rock and dug the staff under his armour, flipping him.

He eventually managed to sneak himself into some hidden spot, out of sight of all of the viewers, and launch a surprise attack to knock the bot down, shooting it while it was pinned under him. 

Lance barely had a moment to breath before the program launched the next attack, a heavily armoured, heavy punching Bot. It ran at Lance like a rhino, knocking him down and proceeding to mercilessly beat him into the ground.

Shiro kept himself in check by reminding himself that Coran and Allura were up on the observation deck, and they wouldn't let any training program seriously injure one of them. If nothing else, it wasn't good strategy. Even so, it wasn't a fun fight to watch for any of them. Hunk and Pidge had abandoned encouragement and warnings entirely, switching to shouting instructions on how to get to the edge of the field to tag Hunk in. Keith fell silent, but he looked like he wanted to jump onto the field and either strangle Lance or break the Bot to pieces. Shiro couldn't be sure which was more likely.

Eventually Lance made it to the edge to tag Hunk, collapsing to his knees with a pained groan. Pidge leaned over Lance as he tried to catch his breath.

"What did we learn?" she asked. Lance whined in response.

Hunk proceeded to wail on the Bot, using his Bayard as a battering ram so effectively that the Bot's next strategy was to become a heavily armoured, un-moving gun turret.

Hunk dealt with that by simply flipping it over and jumping on it.

Hunk tagged out to Keith when the bot became too fast for him, and Keith was just as bad as Lance when it came to knowing when to quit. Keith managed exceptionally well at first, but as the Bot refined its strategy, Shiro could see Keith getting more and more frustrated. That was clearly the Bot's 'plan'- small but constant attacks, aiming to frustrate and keep Keith on his toes rather than injure. At times Shiro was sure he could see Keith pull himself back and try to refocus himself, muttering 'Patience' under his breath, only for the Bot to interrupt and get him on the back foot again. The repeated annoyances eventually drew Keith into a screaming, frustrated chase. 

"It's a Kobayashi Maru!" Hunk shouted over the sounds of battle and Shiro's reminders to keep focus, stay calm, patient... "Failure is the point!" 

Keith stopped in his tracks. "A who?"

"Don't ask, just Tag." Pidge shouted. Keith shook his head as though trying to clear his mind before he quickly tagged Shiro back onto the field.

Allura called the training finished when Shiro managed to perform a volleyball spike on the Bot, throwing it into the far wall of the training room.


	2. Still Water Cages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Through the guidance of the Black Lion, Shiro discovers a new ability. Keith, on the other hand, finally shares his theory with Pidge.

True to her word, Allura gave them the afternoon for themselves. She retreated to the command room with Coran to go over all the data they had currently, looking for patterns, differences and possibly a strategic place to launch an active attack rather than wait for the next distress call. Also to drink some strange tea-like drink that she and Coran were both fond of.

Shiro would probably be in there with them later, once all the data consolidation had happened. Not so much for the tea though. He could take or leave the tea.

Pidge had darted off as soon as Allura had uttered the word "Done", not even stopping long enough for a shower. Lance wasn't in the shower either, frustrating Shiro's plan to subtly check Lance and Keith over without it seeming like he didn't trust them to know their physical limits.

He didn't, but that was beside the point. At least he could confirm that Keith had only a few small bruises.

"You looking for Lance?" Hunk asked, startling Shiro. He appeared not to be as subtle in checking to see if Lance was around as he was hoping.

"That obvious, huh?" Shiro rested a hand on his neck, slightly embarrassed. Of course it was obvious. He was fully dressed and still hovering around the showers.

"Only because I was planning to accidentally walk in on him before he got his shirt on too." Hunk shrugged, pulling a chuckle out of Shiro. At least he could say he was more subtle than Hunk when it came to checking on his team mates.

Keith's brush clacked loudly on the sink. Shiro whipped his head around just in time to see Kieth storm out of the room, shirt in one hand and hair half brushed.

Shiro was briefly worried that Keith had worked out that Shiro was surreptitiously checking him over for damage, before reasoning that Keith had never had a problem confronting him if he thought Shiro went overboard with his concern. Perhaps he was still mad at Lance? He wouldn't be mad that Shiro was concerned about someone else, even if that someone was Lance.

Would he?

Hunk had his eyes narrowed as Keith left.

"Don't follow him." Shiro interrupted. Hunk jumped.

"I won't! I agreed to help Pidge, remember?"

Shiro shook his head and headed out of the showers, wondering if Keith was jealous. Keith would absolutely deny it if he asked, so Shiro would just have to keep an eye on that. Meanwhile, he had at least part of an afternoon free, and there were a few ways he probably should spend it.

Instead, he headed down to the central hanger, where the massive form of the Black Lion sat.

The impressiveness of the sight wasn't lost on him, even as he walked up to it and clambered onto one of the huge paws. He closed his eyes and leaned back against its leg. Almost on reflex he opened his mind up, just enough to let the Black Lion's commanding, expansive presence leak in and remind him that he was here, where he was meant to be right now. The Black Lion brushed against his thoughts, gentle and silent as a soft breeze. It made him think of a half-remembered poem he'd had to study in school, where the fog had been described as a cat prowling through the streets.

Which in turn reminded him that he hadn't actually spoken to Lance yet today about... well, anything. There hadn't been time before training, and Lance had vanished faster than Pidge after the Tag Out exercise.

Maybe he was with Pidge right now? He knew Lance sometimes sat with Hunk and talked while the engineer was working, and Hunk was planning to work with Pidge. Where was Pidge working again? He could swing by later on his way to the command centre, see if Pidge had seen Lance and assure himself that Pidge was OK and not about to work all night and day without sleep again at the same time.

As soon as the thought entered his mind he felt a gentle, tickling sensation in the back of his thoughts. It spread to become a full mental picture, vivid enough that he could almost swear he was seeing it with his own eyes. He saw Pidge from above, changed into casual clothes and with a green headband holding her hair back from her face. She sat at her computer with an extra screen in front of her, typing and scrolling through screens of data, hands constantly moving over the technology as she talked. Hunk sat nearby, already breaking the no touching rule by picking up one of several large boxes of Altean design sitting around the pair. There were cables connecting these boxes to Pidge's computer, then from the boxes up towards the position he was viewing from. It was like looking through the Black Lion's eyes, except that everything was blurred around the edges and tinted just slightly green, as though half the lights had a green gel over them.

Shiro only just managed to keep his eyes closed at the realisation. He was looking out through the Green Lion's eyes! Or, perhaps more accurately, the Black Lion was showing him what the Green Lion had passed on. There was no sound, only pictures and the slightest sense of the Green Lion watching it's pilot with curiosity and affection as it helped chew through recursions and refinements to whatever Pidge was working on.

Shiro couldn't suppress a smile at the discovery, questions on how to use this already flooding his mind. Could the Lion's patch into each other's senses? Or was it just something that the Black Lion could do? Was the Green Lion transmitting this deliberately? Could he see what any of the other Lion's saw?

He would need to ask Coran and Allura about this.

Another vision came crowding in. This one had a more definite yellow cast, and the picture quality was... different. Like parts of it were reconstructed based on some algorithm that didn't perfectly map to the original and occasionally skipped frames. Individual features were mostly smoothed out and less defined, while the movements and gestures were exaggerated. The angle was much higher too, looking down upon Hunk and Coran as they talked and moved around boxes of spare parts. Hunk practically sparkled as he moved, animated and excited by something. It couldn't be happening right now, since Shiro had seen clearly that Hunk was with Pidge in the Green Lion's hanger. It might be from yesterday morning, or even the night before; Coran had been working with Hunk recently on... things Shiro wasn't even going to pretend to understand. The image looped, starting again from the beginning, and Shiro realised that this was a recording of something the Yellow Lion had seen in the past. There was the distant feeling of pride and warm fondness, like a new grandmother showing pictures of her grand-kids to anyone who would sit still long enough. It made him smile.

So he could also see things that the Lion's had seen in the past, as long as it was recorded. Although perhaps it was less like a true recording and more like a memory, filtered to him through the Black Lion. But it was still something.

How far back could the Lions show him? Could he ask them to show him specific things?

Almost before the thought had finished forming, the Blue Lion's hanger appeared in his mind's eye. The scene was tinted slightly ocean blue, and the angle was a lot lower than either the Yellow or Green Lion's vision had been. The picture did had the same sharper look that the Green Lion's had though. The door at the end of the hanger opened, and the figure of Lance crept through, dressed in his Paladin armour still. Or again. He looked around himself as though checking that he wasn't being followed before making his way forwards. As he came closer, Shiro could see a dark bruise on his jaw, matching one of the many places he'd been hit today.

This was happening right now.

Lance smiled hesitantly, warmed through with such affection and anticipation that Shiro heard his own breath catch for a moment before he reminded himself that Lance was smiling at the Blue Lion, not at Shiro himself. He saw Lance speak, and although he couldn't hear the words he could feel perhaps the faintest ripple of excitement that must have come from the Blue Lion.

The vision changed suddenly, warping for a moment and filling his vision with a distortion of colour before reforming back into the Blue Lion's hanger. The blue tint was stronger this time, making the whole scene appear almost as though it was underwater. The Blue Lion's vision focused onto Lance, dressed in his pyjama pants and robe as he stepped into view from the side, blurring the rest of the hanger but leaving Lance's features sharp and true-to-life. Particularly the bitter, sad twist to his face as he smiled back over his shoulder. No bruise to be seen.

A memory, then.

In the Blue Lion's memory, Lance was surrounded by an emptiness that pushed even the odd blue tint of the second-hand vision away. His hand twitched nervously before he wrapped his arms around himself, the twitchy hand tucked under an armpit while the other gripped it's opposite shoulder. That hand moved up to his neck in a gesture of self comfort as Lance walked away from him - no, away from the Blue Lion.

Shiro opened his eyes quickly, trying to cut off the vision. The blue tint took a moment to fade from sight, leaving only the lingering feeling of wanting to reach out towards something... Someone. The fear that they would slip away. He couldn't tell how much of that came from the Blue Lion and how much was still lingering on him from before.

The thought that Shiro could ask the Blue Lion what it was that Lance talked to them about (or what he did when he went to see his Lion in the middle of the night, since he seemed to only get visuals from the other Lions) hadn't quite solidified in his mind, but he would be lying if he didn't at least acknowledge that it was there. But Shiro wanted Lance to be the one to tell him what was going on in his head, and to trust him enough to want to share it with him. Or at least, trust someone enough. Watching him through someone else's memories felt wrong.

The Black Lion was purring softly in his head, pleased at how well he'd taken to this particular skill. It helped to sooth the fears of his earlier episode that had started to rise up around him.

He wasn't surprised when he heard the nearby console screens alert him that the Blue Lion had left the hanger.

* * *

Finding paper in the castle was a surprisingly difficult task, but Keith had managed to find something that was pretty close. It was blindingly white in colour and almost rubbery feeling on one side, but it was better than nothing. Lance had commented that it was totally the wrong colour for a proper Wall of String, which Keith had privately agreed with once he'd found out exactly what that was. Thankfully, this was just note and drawing paper. The kind of paper you use to map relationships should be faintly yellow, so as not to blind you when you're staring at it at 2 am.

Now he just had to make a decision. Was he really going to do this?

Lance had talked to Shiro when he was having a flash back. He even used that nickname, and Shiro immediately recovered. Almost like it was specifically Lance's voice, talking to him, and calling him 'Big Cat' that had actually pulled him out. Keith wasn't jealous that it was Lance that helped, but he could admit that he might be jealous that Lance could use quiet words and some new nickname, and have it work. All Keith could think to do at the time was make sure Shiro wasn't hit and hope that he could hear Kieth, wherever he was in his head.

What if they had that connection now because of Hunk's magical sex powers?

He should really stop calling it that, even in his head. That on its own was enough to convince Keith that he needed help.

Keith carefully wrote 'Can I talk to you privately some time soon?' on one of the sheets of of paper and folded it into a paper dart. He peaked over the windowsill of the observation room down into the Green Lion's hanger, where Pidge and Hunk worked together on isolating algorithms and data mining for... intercepted communications... something something. Keith might not have been able to keep track. He waited for Hunk to be looking away from the flight path, before he carefully took aim at Pidge and flicked the paper dart.

The dart swerved at the end of it's flight and crashed into the Green Lion's paw. Pidge didn't even look up from her computer.

Keith pouted. Alright, time from take two.

A console near him beeped, drawing his attention. White text appeared on the blue screen.

>> Keith? I can see you, you know.

Huh. Well, that was even quicker. He sat down before the screen and began typing.

> OK. Can I talk to you some time?  
> In private.

Keith hit enter and peered back over the window, just in time to watch Pidge launch a rubber-band thing at Hunk, who was about to poke a button on one of the screens she had set up. Hunk didn't seem to have seen his response, at least. Pidge returned to typing, and a response came through not long after.

>> Intriguing. Why?

Keith thought about his reply for a moment, weighing up the pros and cons of asking over text. It seemed a bit cowardly, but it would also force him to carefully think through what he said. That might be a good thing.

> I don't want to bring it up to the others unless I know I've got a solid basis for any theories.

>> Well, now you have my attention. And when you say "The Others", you mean the rest of Voltron? So it's something you don't want to say in front of Hunk?

Keith checked the hanger again. Pidge was pointing at Hunk and the data on the screen in front of him, and Keith could hear her shouting occasionally from his vantage point. If Keith didn't have her messages appearing on the screen in front of him, he wouldn't even know that she was the one typing. It was like Pidge could keep two conversations going at once, provided one of them was with her hands.

That was a pretty impressive skill.

Keith returned to the console, hastily typing his response.

> I especially can't say it in front of Hunk.

>> OK then. So if I promise not to let Hunk peek, we can talk by text.

> No. I'm kind of worried that someone will keep the conversation.

>> Wow. It's like that, is it?

> It's not that I don't trust you specifically. I don't trust any transmission not to be intercepted.

>> Come on. Who exactly would be trying to patch into some random internal conversation between friends?

> That is literally what you're doing right now, to complete strangers.

>> Touche.

>> OK, tell you what. I'll message you when Hunk leaves. Then, you come by and talk, provided I'm not having a breakthrough.

> OK. Thanks.

Keith wandered off, trying to work out a place he could do something productive with the day.

He hadn't even made it all the way to the training room when a screen popped up along the corridor beside him. Keith decided not to think about how Pidge knew where he was.

>> Hunk has enforced a lunch break. Come meet me in the sitting room near the Green Tower.

>> When Hunk returns, there will be a plate of almost-corn-chips covered in deconstructed proteins with amino and fatty acid binders.

>> And Guacamole.

Keith sighed and turned around, heading back the way he came. Pidge was already in the lounge, fingers tapping irritably against her arm.

"Why did it have to be Space Nachos?" Keith began. He should probably have started with a 'Hello', but there didn't seem to be much point. "I don't even understand how you can eat that stuff. It's all chewy and salty and sweet and... awful." Keith made a face.

"I like it. It's like a... Kind of a Dessert Nacho." Pidge shrugged. 

"How's your arm?" Keith asked, sitting down next to Pidge. Her hand automatically moved to cover her wrist before she pulled back her sleeve, revealing only the barest hint of bruising around her arm.

"It was just a surprise, that's all," Pidge said, a hint of challenge in her voice. Keith chose not to rise to it. "Besides, I spotted Lance in Medical. He knows where the good bruise cream is kept, and which tube is which. Which reminds me..."

Pidge stuck a hand into her pocket and pulled out a sticker, peeling it off and placing it on Keith's chest. Keith picked his shirt up to read it.

The sticker said "Do Not Eat" in black on a yellow background.

"If you see that on anything, don't put it in your mouth." Pidge sat back, a sly grin on her face.

"Noted."

"Alright, enough stalling," Pidge sat forwards again, "You have the length of time it takes to warm up the chips and pour goop on them."

Right. Keith didn't expect to be on a time limit here, but Pidge was kind of rushing him. There was only one thing for it. Face it head-on.

"Do you think Hunk and Lance might be dating?" He asked.

Pidge stared at him like he'd lost his mind. To be fair, Keith felt like he might have done just that.

"Like... each other?" She clarified.

"Yes."

"I don't think so." Pidge tilted her head, peering at him like she was trying to understand something. It made Keith a bit nervous. "I mean, they're close, but I don't think they're dating. I think they're just friends."

"Alright. In that case, do you think they're having sex?"

Pidges expression went completely blank.

"With each other,"Keith clarified before she asked. "Or have had sex in the recent past. I don't mean right at this minute."

"I picked up on that." Pidge squeaked out. "The answer would be no in either case. I don't think they're having sex, with each other or with anyone else. I mean...OK, there were rumours about Lance, but I never listened to them."

Keith felt a strange shock run through his body. "What rumours?" He asked. Annoyingly, Pidge dismissed the question with a wave.

"Not important. Why do you want to know if they're...sleeping together?"

That stopped Keith in his tracks for a moment. Why DID he want to know that? He'd been so fixated on the idea itself that he hadn't really stopped to think about why he couldn't let it go.

"Because," He started, not completely sure what would come out of his mouth next, "I think... that Hunk and Lance might have had- Slept together. And I think that maybe... Shiro might have also slept with them?" Keith decided not to mention that he kind of thought that Hunk could cure weird behaviour or nightmares with his sex powers, because that was the kind of theory you had to ease someone into slowly.

Pidge actually burst out laughing at that. Keith glared at her until she stopped.

"Oh my god, you're serious." Pidge blinked owlishly at him. "Why the hell would you think that?"

Keith should feel relieved by her incredulity. If Pidge didn't believe anything was happening, then it had to be ridiculous. 

He didn't feel relieved.

Right, time to lay the evidence out. He decided to start with something that Pidge was definitely present for.

"I've been noticing things. Mostly today. Like, how Lance keeps calling Shiro 'Big Cat'."

"Lance is just a nickname kind of guy. It doesn't mean there's anything more going on. He calls you 'Mullet' all the time, though I'm kind of surprised he doesn't call you something even more inane, like... 'Stabby McShankington'."

Keith couldn't help but wrinkle his nose at that thought. That didn't even make sense. He used a sword, not a shank, and he wasn't Scottish.

"It's not just that Shiro has a new nickname." Keith continued, trying to drag the discussion back on point. "I heard Shiro and Hunk discuss their plans to walk in on Lance while he was shirtless."

"You heard them say that? Those words? Because that sounds like a prank." Pidge sounded incredulous.

"Hunk was planning to 'Accidentally' walk in on Lance before he got his shirt on. Those words. I mean, I almost walked in on Hunk with his hand up Lance's shirt yesterday. Also, Shiro slept in Hunk's room last night. And Lance was there too, because Shiro fell asleep on him."

"So? I've fallen asleep on Lance too," Pidge replied, although she looked like she was giving what he said some serious thought. Good. Keith gave her what he hoped was a flat, disbelieving look.

"In a third party's bedroom?" He asked, hoping the sarcasm carried in his voice.

"It could have just been sleeping," Pidge argued, "I mean, think about it. Lance would probably brag if he was getting laid, wouldn't he?"

Keith blinked. Huh. That was actually a really good point, and it might have given him an idea. Keith was about to tell her just that, when Hunk walked through the door.

"NACHO TIME! Oh! Hey Keith." Hunk grinned, a large plate of chips with a light purple goop and some yellow fruit in one hand and a bowl of thick, dark yellow goop on the other side. "You want some Nacho's too?"

Keith looked at the plates. The yellow goop did taste surprisingly like a slightly spicy guacamole with lime, and it was pretty good. Keith had even seen Shiro sneaking away with some of it the first night Hunk had worked out how to make it. But the nachos themselves really were kind if... weird.

"No, I'm good thanks." Keith decided. Hunk shrugged and put the nachos down on the table with the yellow-guacamole.

"Suit yourself," Hunk grabbed a chip from the plate, drawing out a long string of the purple goo. It really did behave like melted cheese. Keith was impressed with Hunk's dedication to texture as well as taste, even if the "cheese" was far too salty and sweet. Pidge fell on the plate with a happy smile.

"You're loss." She said around a mouthful of purple goo. Keith couldn't hide his wince.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I managed to lose all that I'd written of Chapter 3 on Tuesday. I've re-written it, but I kind of feel like an idiot XD
> 
> Still, I've caught up again, so... let's see how this goes! Thanks for your patience.


	3. Oceans of Ashes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance takes some time to try and understand how his dynamic with Blue has changed and makes a neat little pile of mistakes.
> 
> With brief interlude from Pidge getting some small, petty revenge.

The little ice-ball planet that the castle was currently moored on was surprisingly beautiful, Lance thought. The sky was a lilac colour, brightening to a pale mauve at the horizon and making the whole sky look like it was perpetually sunrise. The sky reflected off the snow and ice of the planet's surface, giving it a warmer, almost violet tint rather than the blue one that snow had in the pictures he'd seen back home.

Blue rumbled gently in Lance's mind as he angled her upwards, soaring over the sharp glacial mountains and white plains. Her presence curled around his thoughts as though to prevent them from escaping, and he could almost feel her leaning up against his back, her arms pressed against his own as he manoeuvred them both between the mountains. Lance tried to ignore both his want for the contact, however unreal, and the pure exhilaration of of flying. He needed to stay focused, awake, and in control.

After yesterday's... Calling it a disaster was probably too strong a word, but Lance felt like being melodramatic, and "Disaster" sounded better than most of the alternatives. Anyway, after yesterday's disaster of a flight, Lance knew he needed to work with Blue before he tried flying her with the team again. They needed to be able to fall in line with the group, otherwise... well, what was the point of him being here if he didn't fit right? They literally had to fit with the rest of the team, or Voltron would have to pick up a peg leg and become an actual robot space pirate. Lance couldn't be angry with Blue though. He was the one who had asked her to help him pretend to be the pilot she deserved after all. Lance just didn't understand what she needed him to be right now.

He moved Blue to swoop down to the snow covered ground below, enjoying the thrill that ran through him as Blue responded smoothly. The ground rushed towards them before he pulled back and levelled out. Blue leaped lightly a couple of times when her paws were close enough to the ground before Lance eased her back upwards again, climbing towards the sky.

He angled them towards a mountain, pushing Blue forwards faster until the very last minute, where he turned sharply. Blue twisted in the air, her paws colliding with the side of the mountain and using the surface to switch her momentum back in the opposite direction. The jolt of movement made Lance suck in a quick breath as he felt at least one of the bruises on his stomach protest both the sudden shift and his own body tensing and twisting to compensate. Blue bent as she landed to minimise the impact and growled unhappily.

"It's just a bruise, no need to worry." Lance said gently. He forgot to take note of what he was doing with the controls when Blue stopped obeying them, so instead he pressed the controls forwards, pushing Blue to run across the snow. There was a delay in her reaction to the command, so Lance kept talking to her, trying to keep himself steady and centred so that Blue didn’t have to resort to listening to his subconscious. "You expect a few bruises in training."

Blue gradually picked up speed at his urging, running smoothly across the ice and clearly in her element as she gripped the slippery ground with her claws to turn and sometimes even skid and drift around mountains.

"I wish you could've seen me in training today though," Lance continued. Would Blue have been proud of him if she’d seen it? He was afraid to ask. Mostly because he didn’t want to think too much about what wanting the sentient spaceship he piloted around to be proud of him would say about him, but also because he was afraid of the answer. "See, the Bot we were fighting against changed to become like, this crazy spear and gun wielding thing. Pretty much no one expected me to beat it..."

That was pretty normal. No one ever really expected him to do well - which was a good though, he told himself. You could take people by surprise with awesomeness when they weren’t expecting anything from you. Still, Lance couldn’t even remember anyone saying "I expected better" about him specifically. They said it about groups he was part of; that they expected better of a cadet, better of a fighter pilot, better of a Paladin… But no one ever expected better of Lance personally. Which, again, was a good thing, Lance reminded himself. People being disappointed in you as part of a group was bad enough, it would definitely suck even more to have someone important disappointed in you specifically.

Lance realised that Blue had slowed right down to a walk, completely ignoring the joysticks (He'd been told they were control columns, but it was hard to beat 'Joystick' as a name) that were still extended forward. He shook his head to dislodge that useless train of thought. Blue mimicked him, shaking her own head as though trying to clear him out of it. He needed to stop thinking and focus. Just... focus. He pushed forwards, urging Blue to follow his commands and pick up speed again.

"Anyway, so this Bot’s pretty quick, but I spot these two rocks near each other, with enough of a gap between them that I could fit into it, even with the armour. So I distract the Bot and lure him to the other side of the field, then I got into that gap. While he comes back looking, I climbed up the inside and waited. Then, when the Bot came by close enough - Pow!" Lance put every part of his willpower into not raising hands to emphasise the Pow, but it was tough to do. He pulled Blue into a sliding turn around an iced valley instead. "I bought the hurt down on him from above."

Together they raced towards the far side of the valley, where the edges had frozen in a crest that looked almost like a wave just before it broke and curled over itself. Blue dug her claws in and crouched down, pure power screaming through her body and igniting her thrusters to launch them upwards into the endless sky. They hung there suspended for a moment, allowing Lance to look across the ice and snow shining in the pinky-purple light, the Castle of Lions sitting in the distance like glowing spires of ice or like something from a fairy tale. Everyone was in there right now. Everyone Blue had bought from Earth and, as far as they knew, everything left of Altea.

Lance released the controls, wrapped his arms around himself and very determinedly didn't think about anything.

As he watched, something dark shot out of the castle. One of the other Lions had launched - Black, from the size of it. Perhaps he should go back, even though he hadn't really improved at all today.

Blue roared, the sound carrying the joy of being able to move freely, and Lance wouldn't have been able to bring himself to head back yet even if he'd wanted to. He still didn't understand exactly why Blue listened sometimes and then seemed to bypass his conscious mind completely other times, but he was pretty sure that Blue was covering for him. Maybe he should just give Blue the reins and drop out of the equation completely. Let her go where she wanted.

Blue turned towards a cliff face, looking out over a flat ocean of ice. So that’s where she wanted to go? Well, who was Lance to say ‘no’ to a lady?

"Okay, beautiful. Let’s go." He agreed with a fond smile, manually changing course to fly to the ice. Blue roared her agreement and shot forwards, easily following Lance’s commands until they dropped down and skid to a stop at the very edge of the cliff. The ice here was ash-grey with a light cover of the clearer stuff on top that reflected warm light and made the whole thing look like it was alive somehow. From here, Lance could see dips and crests frozen into the ice as the sheets had moved and re-frozen.

"Do you think it’s still liquid under there somewhere?" He asked. He felt that almost-but-not-quite presence around him move up and down over his shoulders. Was... was that supposed to be a shrug?

Lance climbed out of the upper exit and sat himself on top of Blue’s head. The sun was getting lower, and the ice ocean provided a clear, unobstructed view of the large moon that spun around the planet. Apparently the moon was mostly heavy gas. Lance remembered, because he’d made a fart joke that absolutely everyone had ignored. Not even a despairing groan. And what was a bad mooning and fart pun worth if it couldn’t even get a groan out of Pidge?

The sun reflected through the hazy atmosphere of the moon, illuminating its edges with a golden glow that looked like a halo on a picture of a saint. The silence was deafening outside of the Lion. Lance had never liked silences, he always felt like he needed to fill them with something besides the noise in his own head. The only ambient sounds right now were the purr of Blue in his mind and the slight creaking of metal, although even that was muted. He remembered hearing that the shape of snow and ice crystals deadened sound, like the bumpy foam they had in recording booths to prevent echo. 

Which actually gave him an idea of how to break the silence. Digging through his memories, he pulled up one of the old songs that his ‘Lita had liked to sing.

"Hey, Blue?" Lance pet the Lion on the head. "I think I might have a theme song for you."

Blue responded with a curious 'mrowl', so Lance began to sing.

"Pienso que un sueno parecido no volvera mas..." _(I think that such a dream will never return...)_ "Y me pintaba las manos why la cara de azul." _(And I painted my hands and my face in blue)_

Blue began to purr, the sound rumbling through his mind warmly.

"Y me improviso el viento rapido me llevo..." _(Suddenly a quick wind took me...)_ "Y me hizo a volar en el cielo infinito!" _(And made me fly through an endless sky!)_

The tone of Blue's purr changed as he sung the chorus of "Volare", moving from pleased to comforting and ending in a disappointed ‘mrow’ when Lance heard the Black Lion approaching and stopped singing. To be fair, he couldn’t remember if the next verse was a repeat or had some changes.

The Black Lion landed next to them, the ice of the cliff edge creaking disconcertingly but not breaking under it. For a moment there was no sound, then the Black Lion leaned towards him, their nose touching Blue’s temple. Shiro emerged shortly after.

Lance found himself looking down at his lap as Shiro walked over onto Blue’s head.

"-ance?" Shiro’s voice came through the helmet speakers, cutting in suddenly. "Why weren’t you responding to your coms? Allura didn’t know that you were heading out, and she couldn’t raise you."

"I… Didn’t realise anyone was contacting me?" Lance responded, sending a questioning thought to Blue. Blue sent back a sheepish, apologetic sound.

Lance didn’t hear Shiro sigh, but he could see the way his shoulders slumped before he sat next to him.

"What are you doing out here?" Shiro asked. He didn’t sound exasperated, which Lance sort of expected he would. Instead, he sounded… Genuine. It seemed wrong for Shiro, Lance’s hero and leader of the Paladins, to direct that tone at him.

"I’m just… getting in some flight hours. That’s all." Lance wished he had something to pick at. In absence of anything else, he settled for fidgeting with his hands in his lap, hoping that Shiro didn’t notice.

"Is this because of what happened yesterday?" Shiro asked. Lance considered lying for about half a second. He discarded the idea just as quickly.

"Yeah," He admitted. "I figured I should make sure everything was worked out before we head out again."

There was a moment of silence, in which Lance tried to surreptitiously work out what was going on. He expected Shiro to just tell him to head back, but… Oh. Shiro wanted to discuss something. Probably his crappy performance.

"Get a load of this view though," Lance jumped in, hoping to maybe deflect attention for a moment. Shiro looked out over the ice.

"I’ve been meaning to say… Thank you." Shiro ignored his deflection. "For last night, I mean. And I’m sorry for falling asleep on you."

"Huh?" Lance hadn’t been expecting that. He waved a hand in front of him dismissively. "No, that’s no problem. Anyway, it was kind of cute."

"Cute?"

"What, fearless leader can’t be cute?" Lance bumped against Shiro’s side. "Hunk can be cute, you can be cute too."

Shiro looked away, although Lance couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed or not. Lance found himself looking back out to the glowing moon.

"How are you feeling?" Shiro startled Lance out his staring. He took a moment to pull himself back and grin at Shiro. Shiro was still looking off somewhere to the side, so he suspected the effort was rather lost on him.

"Me? I’m good." Lance insisted. It didn’t sound quite right, so he added "I’m the coolest thing on this planet. Which, you’ll note, is entirely covered in ice."

Shiro shook his head. "I know that something’s been bothering you." He looked back at Lance, although Lance couldn’t see his face very well through the visor. "Maybe talking about it might help."

Lance felt Blue pushing against him, snapping at his thoughts and rumbling. It made it hard to think up anything to say.

"You first," was the first thing that came out of his mouth. He slapped the front of his helmet, far too late to take back the words. "No, I’m sorry - I didn’t mean that, I just…" Lance gave up, slumping down and dropping his head onto his knees. He didn’t dare look up at Shiro. 

_Coward. Pathetic, mewling coward._

Nope, enough of that. He made himself raise his head to look at Shiro.

"You’ll probably tell me I’m wrong, or an idiot for even noticing it. Or that it shouldn’t matter, which… I know it shouldn't. I’ll be fine again in a couple of days," Lance tried to explain. Of course his team would tell him he was being stupid, an idiot for even seeing something that was blatantly, demonstrably true. That's what people were supposed to say, but it wouldn't change the facts. The Blue Lion was the most able to adapt. She called to Keith, but in the end she realised that of the five of them, he might be able to bond with the Red Lion. There was only one person who wouldn’t be needed somewhere else. Only one person that she could use to get the team to The Castle of Lions. Lance had been the only one left that Blue could spare to help her get here and get Voltron back together. The team couldn’t tell him that he was wrong about that. So instead they’d tell him that he himself was wrong for noticing and making a big deal out of it when it didn’t matter anyway, and call the thing resolved.

"If it’s a bad thing, wouldn’t you want me to tell you that you’re wrong about it?" Shiro asked carefully. "It clearly matters to you right now."

"You couldn’t honestly say that though." Lance shrugged and rocked up to his feet. If he told the Paladins, the idea would be in their heads too. Lance was the spare. Lance could be replaced easiest. Blue growled and curled around him, phantom pressure across his body that made it slightly hard to breathe. He struggled for a moment to get his words to convey what he actually meant. "You'd say that it was **me** that was... wrong." He sighed in frustration.

"We’d better head back." Lance offered Shiro an arm up. Shiro accepted after a moment, almost pulling him off balance before he braced properly.

* * *

Keith was a red-jacketed demon, Pidge decided. A demon who just _had_ to put ideas of her friends getting freaky in a three-way into her head. It was like he’d memetically infected her with a filthy mind. Especially when it came to her Garrison teammates getting it on.

One of whom she was sitting across from right now, watching him lick the pale, sticky, not-quite-cheese substance off of his fingers.

She did not need this in her life right now.

Pidge looked over to Keith, who was chewing determinedly on a cheese-free chip with a perfectly blank expression and her data pad on his lap. Hunk had confiscated it with the firm decree of 'No Work During Lunch'. That also banned work talk, so no discussing her current project. She loved Hunk, she really did, but right now she just wanted to get back to work.

Well, since she was here...

"Where's Lance at?" Pidge asked. "It's been more than five minutes, I expected him to come in complaining of boredom by now."

"Don't know. I haven't actually seen him since training this morning." Hunk replied, looking slightly worried. Keith didn't waver in his expression, but he did look over at Hunk. 

"Huh." Pidge tilted her head. Worried was Hunk's natural state, but he looked like he was trying hard not to look worried right now. Was he hiding something? "Where do you think he is?"

"He didn't get much sleep last night, so he's probably just taking a nap." Hunk shrugged.

Keith glared at her. Pidge did her best to convey 'Hey, I'm finding out information for you, aren't I?' using only her eyes. Predictably, Keith didn't seem to get it. Someday Pidge would up and invent something that let her communicate telepathically with people who weren't wearing any weird brain-probes, but today was not that day.

Besides, just knowing that Lance didn't get much sleep was pretty innocuous, especially from Hunk. It certainly didn't mean anything was going on. A little more prodding might get something else out.

"Really? A nap?" Pidge asked, easily piling some incredulity into her tone. "Exactly how little sleep did he get last night?"

Keith's glare intensified. That was fine by Pidge - if she was going to hell, she was dragging at least one of them down with her.

"Don't know." Hunk was still oblivious to the silent conversation happening between Pidge and Keith. "I don't think it was much. Waking him up this morning was nearly impossible."

"Sounds like normal Lance to me," Pidge mumbled before following up with a louder "Maybe you should go find him?"

"Huh? It's fine. I'm here to spend time with you, after all." Hunk grinned.

Keith looked between the two of them. Her plans to continue this line of questioning must have shown on her face, because Keith suddenly stood and handed Pidge's data pad back to her.

"I'll go check on Lance. See you two later." He announced before walking out the door. 

Internally, Pidge cheered. She'd have to give Keith a present for making the right decision and giving her back her data pad. Maybe do a little extra investigation of his theory. Externally, however, she kept her face nice and neutral.

Hunk watched Keith leave with a narrowed expression. 

"Hey, can I ask you a question?" Hunk asked. Pidge chose not to make the obvious dad-style joke, instead just nodding for him to continue as her fingers flew over the simulations she was running.

"Is Keith mad at me?" Hunk asked.

Pidge looked up from her data pad. "No, he's not mad at you. I promise."

"OK, good. Then next question." Hunk held up a hand with two fingers raised.

"You only asked for one question." Pidge pointed out.

"Then consider this an add-on. Do you think Keith might be worried about Lance?" Hunk grabbed some nachos and dipped it into the guacamole as he spoke. "Because that's the second time he's raced out of the room when I bought up Lance."

Pidge hid her smirk as best she could.

* * *

Allura was waiting for Lance in the hallway just outside of the hanger when he got back, arms crossed and eyebrows knit together in thought. Of course, she still looked elegantly beautiful despite that.

Just one of the advantages to being a Space Princess, Lance figured.

Still, he felt a little bad. Coran had been planning to trick Allura into relaxing today, since she refused to take any time off even though things were relatively quiet right now. Lance had even helped help him get some things out of storage this morning to assist with that. And now, here Lance was, stressing her out.

"Hey," He gave her one of his best smiles as he stepped through the door and pulled his helmet off. "You weren’t waiting up for me, were you?"

Allura’s eyes snapped over to him, but he didn’t get the usual look of confusion from her when he said things like that. Maybe she was more angry then he’d thought?

"Lance," Allura dropped her hands to her side as she spoke. "You can’t take Blue Lion out without telling anybody where you were going. What were you thinking?" She didn’t sound super angry, but Lance suspected that was going to change soon. 

Lance was thinking that he didn’t want anyone to see him struggling to be the bare minimum that a Paladin of Voltron should be. Lance was thinking that he needed to know that he could fly Blue properly now that he knew exactly why he was chosen as her Paladin. Lance was thinking that he’d broken his promise to Blue the day after he’d made it; He’d failed her, he let her down. Lance was thinking that Blue was right - he didn’t have the flight instincts or wits to fly any other Lion. He could only fly a Lion that could adapt to cover his failings.

Lance said: "I was thinking that it’d be fun to go out flying and enjoy the day. You know, the way the light hits the snow reminds me of your hair, beautiful."

Comparing girls to natural things was usually a pretty safe bet, so long as it wasn’t something destructive, like a hurricane, or ugly like… uh, toads? Either way, light and snow should be fine. Allura, however, was not distracted.

"You need to tell people when you’re leaving the castle," She responded, adding more force to her voice. "I know that this planet has no native inhabitants, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be dangerous. What if something had happened?"

"Nothing happened." Lance felt the need to point out, despite knowing that it wasn’t really going to help him here.

"But it easily could have, and we might not have known something was wrong until it was too late. The last time you took off without telling anyone, we lost the Blue Lion for a while. And that time we all _saw_ you leave."

Lance bristled, but said nothing.

"And what about you?" Allura leaned around, looking at the side of his face, where… Oh. Right. He had a bruise there from training earlier, which would definitely be pretty dark. Altean medicine was incredible, but it wasn’t magic. The bruise-be-gone goop he got from Medical sped up the healing process, but it didn’t exactly hide the discolouration while it was happening. Pretty much the opposite. Bruises didn’t usually show up well on his skin, but the cream seemed to make them turn darker quicker and stand out more, even if it healed them faster. Without thinking, Lance covered up his jaw with his hand, despite the fact that it was far too late to hide anything.

"Coran said you’d already left Medical by the time he got there." Allura straightened up and ran her hand through her hair. "Did anyone else look you over?"

Nope. No no no no. Lance had known as soon as training was done that he was pretty banged up. He didn’t want the rest of the team exactly how banged up though. Being the most hurt out of everyone would seriously undermine their impression of his competence or reliability, so when Pidge had shown up in Medical, he knew he couldn’t stay there. Besides, Lance was pretty sure nothing was broken or cut, it was just a few bruises. He’d gotten worse injuries falling out of bed. It seemed ridiculous to wait around for Coran to run a scanner over him, poke him a few times, and tell him that he just had a couple of bumps.

"Relax, Princess. It’s just a couple of bruises. Unless..." Lance couldn’t resist adding with an eyebrow wiggle, "...You want to kiss it better?"

The flat, unimpressed look she gave him said ‘No, thank you’ pretty clearly.

"Lance…" Allura huffed and shook her head. "I really do appreciate that you’re putting in more time with the Blue Lion, especially given the… changes your bond has gone through," She gave him an attempt at a conspiratorial smile, marred somewhat by worry. Lance barely noticed it over the sound of his heart stopping and all the blood leaving his head.

Allura was tied into the Lions. That’s what Coran had said. Was it more than just being able to track them? Could she sense that Blue had resorted to reacting to his subconscious rather than his actual commands? Did Shiro tell her? No… He wouldn’t have. But really, Lance had never asked Shiro not to. And it concerned the team, so Shiro was well within his rights to tell Allura what Lance had told him yesterday. And Allura knew the Lion’s better, she _could_ have been able to infer... everything.

No, stop that. He didn’t know for sure that anyone told anyone anything, or even that Allura knew exactly what had changed. He was just more obvious than he’d meant to be, and Allura was smart enough to pick up on it.

"...ou can talk to me about anything new happening with you and your Lion. As your friend, if you’d like," Allura said gently. Lance realised he’d missed the beginning of that sentence in his sudden panic, but he was pretty sure he had enough context to fill in the blanks. "But please, think. If you’re out of commission, Voltron’s out of commission. We need you be the Blue Paladin."

"No, you don’t." Lance heard himself say. Allura looked at him with obvious surprise. Lance hadn't meant to say it out loud, but since he was here anyway... "You don’t need me to pilot Blue."

"Lance?" Allura looked thoroughly confused. "Of course we do. Who else can fly the Blue Lion?"

_’Lots of people, probably. Blue can meet them more than half way. She’s proven that.’_ Lance thought.

"You could," Lance said.

Allura stared at him for a moment before hiding a laugh behind her hand.

"Don’t be ridiculous, Lance." Allura shook her head gracefully. "A Lion of Voltron can only be piloted by someone whose quintessence matches their own."

"Have you tried?" Lance asked, despite himself. But… he needed to know. Allura and Coran were the only people in the castle that weren’t a Paladin. And Allura was here now.

"Well, no." Allura admitted. Lance stepped back against the wall.

"Then try." He waved his hand towards the door, gesturing her through to the Blue Lion’s hanger. Allura looked at him in confusion.

"What, now?"

"Why not?" Lance shrugged. "There’s no time like the present for getting things done. Or so I hear. I’m more of a last minute kind of guy myself, so hey - let’s both try something new!"

Allura shook her head, clearly humouring him as she stepped past him and into the Blue Lion's hanger.

The Blue Lion was sitting in the middle of the hanger, frost still melting at her paws. Her eyes lit up As Allura approached, and the princess hesitated in her steps for a moment. She then continued forwards, steps slowed and demeanour changing to be more reverent. Could she feel Blue's focus falling on her?

Lance focused on keeping his own thoughts from spiralling out as they clamoured against his skull. He'd asked Allura to do this. Blue wasn't just some piece of property that belonged to him, she was sentient. And even if she wasn't sentient, Blue would belong to Allura. Lance would just be hired to fly her.

Allura held up a hand before her, eyes widening slightly in amazement.

"Greetings, Blue Lion of Voltron." She spoke quietly, a voice just for Blue that Lance just happened to be close enough to hear. "Will you permit me to fly you?"

For a long moment, Lance thought that nothing would happen. The whole castle seemed to hold it’s breath.

Then the Blue Lion lowered her head, mouth opening delicately in front of Allura. Lance could hear Allura’s intake of breath, see a flash of wide eyes and an expression of pure wonder. Could she feel it? That pull of freedom that Blue offered - Could she already see herself racing across the snow and sailing through the endless starscape of space?

Allura stepped into Blue’s mouth, hand delicately trailing across the great Lion’s teeth. Could Allura hear Blue purring to her?

Lance wasn’t sure he was breathing. His chest hurt like he wasn’t breathing, and he felt like hands were wrapped around his throat, choking him. But he was fine, nothing was wrong - why couldn’t he breathe? He felt dizzy… He... Hurt?

Blue started, jerking her head backwards and sending Allura tumbling out of her mouth and down to the ground a short way below. Allura rolled across the ground, quickly sitting up and staring back at Blue in confusion. Blue stood and turned to the doorway where Lance was standing, letting out a short, distressed roar.

Lance stared dumbly at her until she roared again, and he realised - She thought that he was injured. She thought that something had hurt him.

Without thinking, he ran forwards, dropping his helmet somewhere along the way so that he could raise both hands to Blue. She dropped her head close enough for Lance to touch her nose.

"Hey, no, it’s OK, beautiful. Everything’s fine." He leaned against her muzzle. Blue mrowled forlornly in his head, and he felt the faint ghost of touch over his throat and chest. It made him shiver and step back quickly.

"It’s alright. You didn’t do anything wrong." He smiled, hoping it was nice and natural.

Allura gasped softly and pulled herself up from the ground, eyes fixed on him. Lance’s eyes flicked over to her before he stepped back again.

"Right, I need… I need to get changed." He blurted out, turning tail and walking out of the hanger. He heard the sound of Blue moving behind him, so he turned and gave her his best smile before he fled.

_’Coward’_

Blue hadn’t done anything wrong. She shouldn’t feel bad for Lance not being able to handle someone else being able to pilot her. That wasn’t her fault - in fact, it was a good thing that the fate of the universe didn’t depend on him being able to keep his shit together.

He’d known that Allura could pilot Blue, even before he asked her to. He suspected that Coran might be able to as well. So why was he acting this way, just because he’d seen the proof? What did that matter? What did it really change?

_’Because Allura understands the Lions. Allura’s a far better fighter than you. She’s stronger, more ruthless, more compassionate. Allura can physically shape-shift to be better. Allura has proven herself in combat. Allura can strategize and plan. Allura already knows how to fly Altean technology.’_

Lance turned down another hallway, ignoring any aches that spiked through him as he ran. He still had an advantage though - the rest of the team were Human. Lance synced up better with them - that was the most important thing for forming Voltron.

_’For now. It wouldn’t take Allura long to sync with the group. She was already one of them. She would fit in with them in no time.’_

Lance swung into a room he’d never seen before, lit only by dim blue lights and covered in white tiles. He wasn’t paying much attention, too focused on ripping his chest armour off and throwing it into the corner.

Allura would probably like to be a Paladin. She wouldn’t be the leader, but she respected Shiro enough that Lance was sure she could follow him. And she would belong to a team - she wouldn’t be standing on her own all the time. She could let herself be a part of the group.

Lance stopped himself. He should… he should tell Allura to be the Blue Paladin and let her belong to their group that way, but he was too selfish. He couldn’t let this go. Being the Blue Paladin was how he dealt with being in space, so far away from everything familiar. He needed that.

Lance pulled both the bracers and the gloves underneath them off so that he could rub at his wrists. He wanted badly to go find Hunk, but… Hunk and Coran had a plan for today. Coran was going to trick Allura into relaxing for a bit, which Lance had already messed up. And Hunk was going to get Pidge away from her algorithm programming for an afternoon. Lance wasn’t going to mess that up too - Pidge needed to rest her brain and remember what fun was, whether she believed that or not. Hunk could do that for her, and Lance didn’t have a monopoly on Hunk.

_’You did this to yourself. What exactly did you think would happen?’_

He wrapped his arms around himself, ordering himself to calm down. He was not going to cry, he thought, scrubbing his hand across his face. He was tired. He hurt. He didn’t want anyone to see him cry, but he desperately didn’t want to be alone. Why had he run off? That was so stupid.

Lance was a little too affected right now. He just needed some time to calm down and reassess things. He would see that he was being selfish and childish, and then he'd feel rightly ashamed of how he was acting at the moment. The only thing that had changed was that now everyone knew for sure there was another option for Blue. That was a good thing. Now the universe wouldn't be doomed if Lance died. 

The Blue Paladin shouldn’t behave this way. The Blue Paladin should not be pacing around an empty, dimly lit room. The Blue Paladin should not feel like his under-armour was choking him. The Blue Paladin should not be this close to crying. 

He wanted… He needed...

The door opened and Lance jumped, mind already racing, trying to come up with an explanation for his presence in this room. But it wasn’t Allura at the door.

"Lance?" Keith asked, his outline silhouetted against the light of the hallway.

Lance straightened up, keeping his head turned away from the door. "What are you doing here, Mullet?"

Keith didn’t answer at first. Lance was about to ask again when Keith stepped into the room.

"How does Hunk help you?" Keith asked.

Lance stopped breathing. He and Keith weren’t enemies, but Keith rarely initiated any sort of contact. He would never let Lance… Not just… Could he ask? No, of course not. His pride wouldn’t let him. 

But... Lance knew how he could get what he wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh... Yeah, it's time to update the tags a bit. Sorry that this chapter ended up being almost entirely Lance!Angst - pacing is still clearly something I need to work on.
> 
> Yes, I realise that Lance engages in a lot of repetition here.


	4. I lay here empty, caught between the want and need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith's discussion with Lance doesn't go the way he expected it to, prompting much confusion from Keith and a crisis for Lance.  
> Lance's stubborn nature increasingly makes things difficult for him.

How could he continuously have no idea how to find the same team mate?

Keith didn't know where Lance was. All he really had was a strong desire to get away from Pidge before she gave up on subtitles and just straight out told Hunk that Keith was obsessed with his dick. Which he was not, he just wanted to know if there was something going on that might affect the team. And Pidge may have given him an idea on how to find out.

He checked Lance's room and found no sign of Lance or his Paladin armour. At which point he promptly ran out of ideas for where to look. With no clue where to go next, he called in to the command room.

"Yes, mission control," Coran's voice greeted him when the speaker flared to life.

"It's Keith," Keith began.

"Oh! Hi Keith," Coran sounded surprised. "What can I help you with today?"

"Do you know where Lance is?"

"Lance took the Blue Lion out." Coran replied, worry seeping into his voice. "He's on his way back now though."

Keith blinked at the speaker. Why would Coran be worried? And why would Lance take the Blue Lion out now?

"OK. I'll meet him there. Thanks." Keith turned away, stopping for a moment when the speaker crackled as though Coran had turned it back on. He waited for Coran to say something, but there was no follow up. The speaker went dark again. With a shrug, Keith continued down the hall and turned towards the elevator that would get him to the Blue Lion's hanger. The trip there gave him time to work out the best way to enact his idea.

Pidge had pointed out that Lance would probably brag if he were getting laid. Lance would brag about most things if given the opportunity, so Keith figured that was a good place to start. All he needed to do was give Lance that opportunity, some kind of conversational opening for him to brag.

_'I heard Shiro fell asleep on you last night?'_ Might be a start, since it carried that hint of Challenge that always got Lance riled up and biting back.

_'Hunk and Shiro were looking for you earlier?'_ No, probably not. A bit too open ended. It made Keith sound like he was sent to find Lance, and it would be awkward to explain if Lance did track Hunk or Shiro down and ask why they wanted to see him.

_'I've been meaning to ask, what exactly is "Hunk Therapy"?'_ That made him sound ignorant, and if Lance was in a mood he would absolutely hold knowing something Keith didn't over him for a while before telling. It could go second on the list then, for now.

_'Hunk and Shiro… they're both pretty hot, aren't they?'_ No. That sounded like he was planning to ask one of them out himself. Lance would probably check to see if he'd been replaced with a robot. That plan could go right to the bottom of the pile.

_'What is it that you and Hunk get up to anyway?'_ No, that was terrible. That was asking for stories about Lance and Hunk getting into trouble, despite Hunk's best efforts. Maybe he could reword it? _'I was wondering, does Hunk do anything special for you or Shiro that he doesn't do for the rest of us?'_ Did that sound more like he was jealous or like he was trying to be a good friend?

Keith exited the elevator, just making up his mind to go with his first option when he heard the sound of something clanging against the wall in one of the rooms ahead of him. His knife was in his hand almost before he'd realised. He had no idea what was actually on this side of the castle or whether that sound was normal, but it was always better to be safe than sorry. He strained his ears for any further noises.

A second, duller thump. Scraping. Steps. Heavy breaths.

It didn't sound like it belonged here, but it also didn't sound like an intruder. Or if it was an intruder, it was a stupid, noisy one. Keith walked to the room that the sounds were coming through, took a breath, and threw open the door. Light from the corridor spilled into the dimly lit room. Just beyond the reach of the light was the hunched form of -

"Lance?" Keith asked, despite the answer being obvious. There was Lance, missing his breastplate and with his arms wrapped around himself. He was just barely illuminated by a dim, blue light from strips along the floor. Keith caught just the quickest glimpse of Lance's eyes before he straightened and turned his head away, giving Keith a clear view of a bruise on his jaw. His helmet should be covering that.

"What are you doing here, Mullet?" Lance asked, the normally challenging tone that accompanied that nickname dulled down to something tired and small.

Keith hadn't been expecting this. He slid his knife back into its sheath and walked further in, wanting to ask what was wrong, why was Lance alone in the dark, was he okay, should Keith go get anyone to help with this?

In the confusion of wanting to ask any of those questions, the thing that came out of his mouth was little more than a corrupted abbreviation of the last thing he'd been thinking of asking before he'd heard the thump.

"How does Hunk help you?" Keith asked. Which wasn't quite what he wanted to say, but it would do for a start.

Lance froze, and Keith wondered if he'd managed to say the exact wrong thing somehow. The way that the blue lit his face made it hard for Keith to get a clear read on Lance from this angle, leaving him holding his breath until Lance turned towards him. Their eyes met almost immediately.

Lance wore an expression he'd seen in the mirror once, a long time ago. Determination covering hope covering nerves covering pain. Keith took another step forwards, and the door slid shut behind him, making both of them jump and breaking the strange spell that the moment had. Keith turned back to the door accusingly.

"You want to know what Hunk would do?" Lance drawled. It was such a sharp, unexpected sound that Keith almost spun with how fast he turned back to the source of that voice. "You don't have to be Hunk. You should ask 'What can I do for you?' Instead."

Lance was walking towards him with a languid roll that seemed comfortable on him, even though Keith was pretty sure was forced. Every part of Lance not going into the impression of lazy ease was tense, like he was walking into danger.

"What can I do for you?" Keith repeated. Lance stopped and blinked at him in surprise, like he hadn't expected Keith to actually ask that.

"I'm sure I could come up with something," Lance purred, eyes flicking down over his body and then back up to Keith's face. A sly smile spread over Lance's features, looking a bit out of place.

It seemed like Lance was trying to hit on him.

Lance reached towards Keith, his hand hovering just above Keith's chest, waiting for a beat before touching him. It was like he was scared of what Keith's reaction would be, eyes flicking up to his face as he waited for... what, exactly? Did he expect Keith to freak out? He realised belatedly that Lance's gloves and arm armour were gone too as he watched Lance's hand pluck at the front of his black T-shirt and hold it out for a moment before dropping it. There was a tremor running through it. Lance bit his lip and looked back up at Keith.

"You might want to take that off. I wouldn't want to disobey the sticker." Lance said with a smirk that looked more genuine. Keith looked down at his chest dumbly for a bit before he remembered.

He still had a "Do Not Eat" sticker on his shirt.

Lance was definitely hitting on him right now. Nervously, awkwardly hitting on him. Which was honestly not where he expected this conversation to go. Nothing about this was anything like what he'd expected. He'd thought there would be bragging or confused denial, not flirting from a clearly distressed Lance.

Wait - Did this mean he was at least partly right? How else would 'Lance was coming on to him' logically follow on from asking how Hunk would help? But he didn't actually know for sure, and either way he should not be doing whatever it was that Lance had in mind.

"Isn't Hunk-" Keith began. Lance flinched, and Keith stopped himself from finishing that sentence. Lance tried to cover up by stepping in close enough for Keith to feel the warmth radiating off of him and smell salt, sweat and the sharp, electric smell of Ozone on him. He leaned in as though to tell Keith a secret, warm breath across Keith's neck pulling a shot, surprised intake of breath from him. Keith fought to keep himself otherwise still, certain that Lance would bolt if he made any sudden movement.

"Keith," Lance spoke quietly, his hands moving to rest lightly on Keith's hips. "Aren't you going to tell me to stop?"

The challenge in Lance's tone was at odds with his hands, which still shook even as Lance slid them upwards and under Keith's shirt. His fingertips were feather light against Keith's skin, and slightly ticklish. If Keith moved, would he startle Lance again? He had a feeling the answer was still 'yes'.

Keith didn't move away or speak, hands clenched at his sides in an effort to stop himself reaching out. Lance seemed to grow a little more confident, pressing his hands flat against Keith's sides and resting his mouth on Keith's ear before dragging it down to his neck to mouth gently at the skin there. Keeping still suddenly got exceptionally hard as a shiver ran through him and god, when was the last time Keith had felt someone else's skin against his own? Over a year ago at least, maybe longer. He was acutely aware that Lance's hands were cool, but everything else was soft and warm and altogether far too pleasant.

Speaking of Lance's hands, they slid around to his stomach where Lance's thumbs brushed the dips of Keith's hip bones just under his waistband and followed the line of his Iliac Furrow lower still. Lance moved off of his neck, leaving a warm shiver in his wake.

Suddenly, Lance pulled his hands away from Keith and stepped back. Keith opened his eyes, only now realising that he'd closed them at some point. Lance took another step back, looking anywhere but at Keith.

"Lance..." Keith tried before trailing off, not sure what was going on. Lance rubbed a hand over his face.

"Sorry, I... I shouldn't have done that. No idea what I was thinking." Lance walked around him in a few long steps and out the door, leaving Keith standing in an empty blue room.

* * *

Keith almost literally bumped into Hunk and Pidge in the hallway, too busy thinking to pay much attention to his surroundings. It was only reflexes that kept him from colliding with Hunk, of all the people to run into. Keith hadn't had the time to work out what exactly he was going to say to him yet, and he was still confused by Lance's actions. Hell, he was carrying the bits of Lance's armour that had been left behind in the room when Lance bolted, because taking them back to Lance's room had at least given him a firm destination.

He was confused and he hadn't expected to see Hunk so soon. That was the excuse he gave himself for why he answered Hunk's perfectly reasonable question the way he did.

When Hunk asked "Hey, are you OK? You look a little freaked."

Keith opened his mouth and responded with "Lance nibbled on by neck. I'm sorry."

Pidge made a high-pitched squeaking noise. Hunk stared at him blankly for a tick before closing his eyes and holding his hands in front of his mouth as though in prayer. Meanwhile, Keith's mind kicked into overdrive. Why had he been so specific? Why couldn't he have just said 'Lance was hitting on me, but it's OK because he left'? Or, better yet, 'I'm fine, just thinking'. Would Hunk be pissed? What was a properly angry Hunk even like?

Hunk carefully exhaled and put his hands on Keith's shoulders, looking him in the eye.

"Are you OK?" He asked seriously. "Did anything else... happen?"

Keith blinked. Nope, Hunk was still staring at him with nothing but concern.

"I'm Fine? Why wouldn't I be?" Keith answered. He looked to Pidge for some sort of assistance, but she was pulling a strange face with her lips pressed together hard enough that they all but disappeared. Hunk continued staring at him, so he added "I didn't touch him."

Hunk sighed, bowing his head as though exhausted. "Not what I meant, but... So long as you're OK."

Keith felt like he was missing something. "You're not angry."

"Huh? Of course not!" Hunk sounded thoroughly shocked. He stepped back from Keith and crossed his arms. "Well, I'm not angry at you at least. I'm furious at Lance."

Right, of course. That made more sense.

"So… Why are you carrying bits of his armour?" Pidge asked. "Tell me he didn't do a strip tease or anything first."

Keith looked down at the breastplate and gloves he'd grabbed. He'd forgotten he still had them. "No, nothing like that, he just kind of hit on me and then-" Keith cut himself off, deciding not to continue that thought. Some things didn't need that much detail. "He'd already taken them off when I found him, then he left them behind when he ran off."

"Wait - Lance ran off?" Pidge looked thoroughly confused. Keith didn't blame her. He was still confused about what just happened.

"Yeah. He just… apologised and left." He confirmed.

Hunk glared at the wall. "Dammit, I told him to come to me if he got this way again."He muttered under his breath. "But does he listen? No, of course not."

Keith looked at Pidge and raised an eyebrow, wondering if Hunk realised that both he and Pidge could still hear him. Pidge looked like she was about to comment, but Allura chose that moment to step around the corner behind Keith.

She looked between the three of them, then down to the armor that Keith was holding. Immediately her shoulders slumped.

"Oh," she exclaimed with disappointment.

Keith looked down at the breastplate he still held, then back up as Shiro followed Allura into the hall, Lance's helmet in his hand. His eyes quickly skimmed over the group of them, clearly taking note of exactly who was here and who was missing.

"Not who you were expecting to find?" Pidge asked.

Allura recovered quickly, fiddling with something in her hand and bringing up a small screen with Coran's face on it.

"He's not wearing his upper armour." Allura spoke before Coran had a chance to ask. "I'll keep looking."

"Ah. Right-o." Coran nodded. "Keep me informed."

Keith shared a look with Hunk and Pidge as the small screen blinked out of existence.

"What's going on?" Keith asked on behalf of the trio. Allura took a moment to compose herself by smoothing down her dress before she looked at the three of them.

"Have any of you seen Lance?" She asked.

"Keith did," Pidge piped up. Keith shot her a sharp look, but she ignored him and focused on Shiro instead. "Lance was mackin' on him."

Shiro blinked in surprise before his expression went carefully blank. Pidge picked the helmet out of Shiro's hands while he was distracted and began looking at it.

"Oh." Shiro turned to Keith, apparently completely lost for words. "Are you... OK?" He eventually asked.

"Why do people keep asking that?" Keith complained. Shiro looked blankly at him. "I'm fine."

"Allura, what's going on?" Hunk repeated on Keith's behalf, thankfully before any more questions could be asked, bless him.

Allura hesitated before answering. "Lance suggested I should try to fly the Blue Lion."

"Lance did." Pidge sounded incredulous. "Our Lance."

"He seemed so certain that I could, I figured I would humour him." Allura shrugged delicately.

"Could you?" Keith asked, "Can you pilot the Blue Lion?" A suspicion was starting to form in his mind, but it wasn't quite fully formed yet. There were a few holes here and a few loose threads there, but he would work on it.

"I didn't get to find out for sure, but her mind connected to mine for a moment, so… perhaps I really could." Allura closed her eyes as she tried to describe the feeling of making first contact. Keith could empathise. He wasn't even sure how he would begin to explain the moment that Red had accepted him. "I could hear her singing in my head. An old song from before the war. She asked for help."

"Wait wait wait." Pidge looked up from Lance's helmet, eyes narrowed. "The Blue Lion asked. As in, it spoke to you?"

"Not speak, exactly." Allura ran her hand through her hair, "I got a feeling of reaching towards something that was too far away. The feeling that she needed help to reach it. I don't know the specifics, but I'm sure it has something to do with Lance" She sighed in frustration. "He took off before I could say anything."

"That seems to be a common theme." Pidge snarked. She held up the helmet. "Also, did anyone notice that the long range communicator was knocked out of place in here?"

"What?" Allura grabbed the helmet. "Let me see that." She twisted the helmet around, looking at the inside of the helmet to where a small section had been knocked loose. "When did that happen?"

Pidge grabbed the helmet back, making a sound as she shrugged. "Could have been smacked in the head by Robo-Rage." She slid the electronics back in place and twisted them until they settled with a click.

"Right. I'm gonna go find him," Hunks announced, face pinched with worry. Keith turned to follow him and assist. Shiro began to walk with them as well, away from Pidge and Allura who were still poking at the electronics in the helmet.

"Please let Lance know that I want to speak to him when you find him." Allura asked distractedly.

That was almost guaranteed to scare Lance off. Keith chose no response. Hunk chose a long "uuummm" sound that was equally as eloquent.

* * *

Lance let his head rest against the shower wall, not yet willing to move despite having turned the water off. What the hell had he been thinking? Molesting your friend and team-mate definitely counted as bad. The kind of bad that went beyond just "sit in a corner and think about what you've done".

The saddest part on his side was that he would have been willing to go further. Probably a lot further. What had he _even been thinking_? No- Lance knew pretty well that he hadn't been thinking anything. Or at least he hadn't been thinking about anyone but himself. _'Selfish, selfish.'_ It took him way too long to notice how uncomfortable Keith was. It wasn't until he stepped back to see what he was doing around the red Paladin's pants that he saw the way Keith's eyes were closed tight, his eyebrows drawn together and face twisted into a grimace. His hands had been clenched - no, his whole body was stiff and tense as an overwound guitar string.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Lance figured that Keith would lash out, push him away, maybe drag him into a scuffle if he didn't want to pick up what Lance was putting down. Hell, he half expected he'd need to spell it out for Keith, maybe say 'I would very much like to give you a hand job right now, or if you prefer I could perform oral sex upon you' (assuming he could resist putting on a snooty accent or dissolving into a giggling fit). It hadn't even occurred to him that Keith would freeze, but it should have. Keith wasn't even much for initiating casual contact, why had Lance just assumed Keith would be comfortable telling him to piss off?

_'How can one man mess up so often in such a short space of time? It must be all the practice you've had.'_

Lance knocked his head against the wall twice for good measure. If he'd messed up their ability to form Voltron, that was it. He was handing the keys to Blue over to Allura.

He pulled his underwear on over his still damp skin and looked down at his stomach and legs, poking at the bruises. They'd be pretty much gone by tomorrow morning, having spread out as far as they were going to and moved from red to purple with a greenish edge. It was difficult to resist poking them harder, so he pulled his t-shirt over his head before he gave in to the urge.

He'd have to apologise to Keith. Again, and this time without removing himself from Keith's presence quite so quickly. Not unless Keith asked him to go. Whatever it took to work it out. Then he'd apologise to Allura for getting all weird on her. Who else was there?

"So this is where you are."

Lance jumped and swore as he heard Hunk's voice echo through the showers, nearly tripping over his jeans. He used the time taken to get his jeans on properly, including a brief pants-dance (that's what you get for not drying off properly, idiot), to give himself time to re-settle. No way was he facing anyone without trousers today.

He turned to Hunk, any sort of witty comment dying on his lips when he saw Hunk's crossed arms and pout. Lance suspected it was meant to be a glare, but Hunk made it look far more like a pout.

"I spoke to Keith," Hunk announced with a solid air of disapproval. "What were you thinking?"

Well, it looked like Hunk was now added to the top of the list of people he needed to apologise to. Wonderful.

Lance groaned and sat back on the bench that ran up the middle of the showers, really adding to that high-school locker room vibe. He put his head in his hands.

"I don't know what I was thinking. I wasn't thinking." Lance dragged his hands down his face before dropping them in his lap. "I was just... freaking out. I needed to do something, and then Keith was there, and I didn't want him to go but I didn't want him to see me and realise how pathetic I..." He cut himself off with a frustrated huff.

Hunk had crossed the room while he was rambling and was now standing in front of him. He put a hand on Lance's shoulder, and Lance braved a look up at Hunk's sad, watery eyes. Oh dammit, he'd made Hunk cry now.

"I really am sorry. I know, I messed up," Lance offered.

Hunk shook his head and sat down next to Lance, wrapping both arms around him and pulling him into a tight hug.

Lance didn't quite manage to swallow the sharp gasp as his middle was squeezed in time. Hunk froze, and Lance discarded any hope that he hadn't noticed the sound almost immediately.

Hunk sat back, hands planted firmly on Lance's arms, and gave him a stern look. Lance was sure he must have looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights. For a moment, neither of them moved.

"You've got a heck of an arm grip, you know that?" Lance joked, cutting through the silence and poking Hunk in the chest.

"Nope, not buying it. Shirt off, let me see." Hunk shook his head and grabbed Lance's shirt by the bottom hem. Lance's hands flew to hold it down.

"Dude, seriously, it looks worse than it is. You'll just flip." Lance moved to deflect Hunk's grabby hands.

"Let me be the judge of that." Hunk grabbed the back of his shirt and tugged.

"The point of 'Looks Worse Than It Is' is that you CAN'T be the judge." Lance responded, wriggling backwards to get out of Hunk's grip. Hunk moved to pin Lance's legs by almost sitting on them, forcing Lance to lean his body away in order to keep any distance.

Wow, that really ached. Alright, new plan - hand on Hunk's face and push.

"Come on, stop being a baby," Hunk said into Lance's palm, completely undeterred.

"How is actually WANTING to keep my shirt on in any way me being a baby?" Lance complained. Hunk deftly manoeuvred between his flailing arms and face pushes to finally yank Lance's shirt up over his head.

"Okay, you're getting pretty close to knocking the B out of our Bromance here." Lance said to the inside of his shirt. His arms were pinned above him by the half removed item of clothing, but Hunk had stopped struggling to pull it off.

Lance waved his arms above his head in what he hoped was a forlorn manner, feeling rather like a sad, over-exposed anemone.

"Holy Crow, dude!" Hunk exclaimed, "You look like you were hit by an actual landslide."

"I do not!" Lance protested, struggling a bit to do something with his shirt before giving up and pulling it off over his head.

Hunk poked at the bruise across his upper stomach, just under where his chest armour had been. Lance absolutely refused to show any signs that it might be a little tender, although that particular mark and the one on Lance's left side from where he got round-house kicked by gun-stick bot were by far the two most troublesome bruises for moving.

"So this is why you slunk off right after training?" Hunk asked, poking at one the bruises on his upper arm that thankfully didn't hurt at all.

Lance was about to protest, but decided against it. "I made a detour to Medical." He admitted.

"Okay, okay. Gentle hugs then." Hunk conceded before moving Lance in so that Hunk could wrap one arm around him with about an inch of space between Lance and any contact, one hand gently petting him on the middle of his back. Lance snorted out a laugh and slumped forwards, covering his face with his hands.

"This is completely ridiculous." He muttered.

Lance barely had a moment to really savour the ridiculousness of Hunk's actions before he heard a short, surprised sound from the doorway. Lance jumped as best he could with Hunk's weight keeping him pinned to the bench and turned to stared to the doorway in horror.

Keith stared back at him with equally surprised eyes, face going slightly red. His eyes then dropped down to Lance's chest.

Oh, good. That right there was a double whammy of 'Not how Lance planned to see Keith next.' Shirtless in front of the guy he'd practically forced himself on AND showing off exactly how badly he'd done earlier compared to pretty much everyone else. Lance had never wished for a smoke bomb, the Galra to attack or just to spontaneously pop like a balloon more than he did right then.

He tried to scramble back from Hunk to grab his shirt, but he quickly realised that Hunk was still pinning him in place when his legs failed to follow his chest backwards, leaving him hissing as he suddenly twisted the still tender parts. He slapped Hunk twice on the chest, part to draw his attention and part in retribution. Hunk looked at him in confusion for a tick before he caught on and released Lance's legs. Lance wasted no time pulling his shirt back on. If he was going to be apologising, he was going to be fully dressed while he did it.

"Um," Keith said behind Lance's back, presumably to Hunk. "So... I found Lance."

"Oh! Yes, we found Lance." Hunk repeated, bizarrely. Lance didn't have the brainpower to really focus on the strange interaction going on in his peripheral. He was too busy trying to pull himself together. With a breath, he turned around.

"Keith, I- I wanted to apologise. For earlier." Lance couldn't quite make himself look at Keith, conceding to the voice at the back of his head calling him _pathetic, a coward, disgusting_. "I shouldn't have... put you in that situation. I'm sorry, and... Uh, if there's anything I can do to make it up to you, I'll do it."

Nobody moved, although Hunk looked back and forth between them. Finally, Lance braved a glance up at Keith...

...Who was way closer than he had been a moment ago. Was he a cat or something? How did he move so quietly in those huge stomping boots he wore?

Keith watched him intently, intensely, like he could somehow see right into his mind. Lance's heart sped up and leaped into his throat, the way it always did when he suddenly felt like anyone besides Hunk or his family could really _see_ him. He did his best not to flinch or look away, tried his best not to assume that Keith was going to punch him. Even if Lance sort of half wished he would. It might help even things out between them.

Keith reached forwards carefully, as though expecting Lance to somehow jump past him and bolt out the door. Lance decided not to point out that he would have already done that if he could. Keith's eyes flicked over to Hunk, probably checking with the big guy to make sure he wasn't being overly intense. He did tend towards the over-intense sometimes, although Lance would usually take intense over being ignored.

Keith must have gotten the all clear from Hunk, because he plucked at the front of Lance's shirt and lifted it up slightly.

"Your shirt's on backwards," He commented with a small smirk.

Lance look down at his own chest and swore, pulling his arms in and swivelling the shirt around his neck to get it facing the right way. By the time he was done, Keith's smirk had fallen and he was back to looking at Lance intently.

"You know that we wouldn't replace you unless we had no other choice, right?" Keith asked out of the blue. Lance froze.

Could Keith _actually_ see into his mind, or was he just that obvious? Otherwise why even bring that up now? Lance deliberately turned his head away from Hunk and Keith to prevent them from being able to see his face until he was sure it was under his control again. Neither of them needed see anything that might reveal that he'd been considering just that.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Lance bit out. _'He sees right through you.'_

"Allura might be able to pilot the Blue Lion, but you're still the Blue Paladin." Keith rested his hands on his hips as he continued, the movement drawing Lance's eye. He flicked his gaze up to Keith's face but couldn't bring himself to linger, noting only the concern in Keith's eyes before he looked away. "The Blue Lion chose you to be her pilot."

Lance felt himself flinch visibly, despite his best attempts. Of course Keith didn't know. _'Because he hasn't thought about it.'_ If Lance had done a good enough job faking his competence, then Keith would never even have a reason to stop to think about how bad a fit Lance was when compared to the rest of the group (an amazing engineer, a technological genius, The best pilot the garrison ever produced, and a brilliant fighter who probably would have become the best pilot if he'd stayed, though God help Lance if he ever said that out loud… and Lance) or how weird it was that Blue had literally called Keith out to the desert but decided to pick up Lance as her pilot instead. Even if he had realised all that, he wouldn't know that Lance had worked it out. Keith didn't think about Lance as much as Lance thought about Keith. _'Why would anyone?'_

He took a deep breath to steady himself. At least the ache that he got when he thought about it was starting to dull. That meant that he'd accepted the truth, he just needed to wait for the hurt to pass completely as he assimilated it. Then he could return to normal, and all of this could be forgotten.

"Lance..." Hunk's voice was heavy with half-formed questions. He needed to say something. Anything. And now. What was with him today? Why was he having so much trouble?

Keith's hand on his arm startled Lance, derailing his brain's attempts to come up with something disarming to say. His eyes were drawn to Keith's face against his will, and he was immediately caught by Keith's searching gaze.

"She chose you," Keith insisted.

"No," Lance replied, voice cracking so badly he wasn't sure Keith would have even been able to understand the word. "She chose you. But she can adapt."

Lance barely noted the shock on Keith's face as he pulled his arm free. He walked around Keith, eyes down as he headed for the door. Hunk stood to follow him, calling his name. Lance would find somewhere away from everyone, away from Keith. Then he'd swear Hunk to secrecy and tell him as much as he dared - Hunk was terrible at secrets, so even swearing him to secrecy was no guarantee, but he deserved to know that Lance was OK, just working through something...

He stopped dead in his tracks. Dammit, he was running away again, wasn't he? This was already humiliating enough without him breaking down again in front of Keith, but what the hell was he doing? He'd already run away from Keith today. He couldn't keep doing that, he needed a better strategy. Steeling himself, Lance looked up at the doorway and the escape that lay beyond it, determined to turn and face down Keith like a man.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw that it wasn't as empty as he'd thought. His yelp wasn't particularly manly either. Hurrah.

"How long have you been there?" Lance croaked out.

"Long enough, I think." Shiro responded smoothly from his position leaning against the door jamb. Lance slunk back a couple of steps, shame coiling through him. So, Shiro had seen his little outburst then.

Keith rested a hand on his shoulder, stopping even that modicum of retreat.

"What did you mean?" Keith asked insistently. Lance found himself looking between Keith and Shiro, from Keith's stubborn, focused worry, to Shiro's kinder but more sad expression. Dammit if he didn't immediately want to tell Shiro anything that would make him happy, tell Keith anything that would ease his mind.

Keith and Shiro were probably the ones he was most afraid of, after Allura. But Hunk was here, and maybe it would be easier to just say it once.

He looked to Hunk last, hoping for some kind support. Hunk bit his lip anxiously, but gave him a determined look and a nod. Lance nearly wrapped his arms around himself before he realised what he was doing and instead shoved his hands into his pockets.

"I mean," Lance began. "That I wasn't Blue's first choice. She was only waiting for more people. More than one, at least, and when she got five... she made a decision on who wouldn't be needed elsewhere. Which person she could spare. She settled on me."

"Wait," Keith cut in, shaking his head. "That's what's got you like this?" He looked at Lance as though expecting him to throw his arms out and shout 'just kidding!'. Lance did not, so Keith sighed, lips curving upwards. "Idiot. Why would you even think that?"

Lance didn't flinch, but he had to close his eyes for a beat. _'I told you so.'_ He missed Keith's expression suddenly falling, only opening his eyes to see Keith looking between Hunk and Shiro questioningly, like they might be able to answer on Lance's behalf.

Actually, Keith looked a little panicked.

"I know, it took me a while to realise. I'd wondered why... Blue called you, Keith. I didn't even know about her until we were in front of her. Hell, the signal itself was specifically something YOU had seen! She knew where you had been, what you had seen, and from which angle you had seen it." Lance smiled, a little more bitterly than he'd intended. "Blue wanted you, that was so clear, so why… Why pick me? What, did she go through all of that rigmarole, then see me and go 'Nope, changed my mind, I want that one instead?' It just didn't make sense. Until I realised that she's adaptable, she's not as picky as all the other Lions. She saw inside everyone here, and she could see who could match up with which Lion. And maybe we both could pilot Blue, but only you could pilot the Red Lion."

Shiro walked forwards as Lance spoke, moving close enough that Lance could probably reach out and touch him. Hunk had drifted forwards as well to stand just behind Keith

"Is that really what you think?" Hunk asked quietly. Lance could see his mind working, rolling the thought through his head and testing it.

Lance nodded, immediately feeling bad for admitting that. Now Hunk would start wondering whether he'd been the right one or just the one available now too, and he shouldn't have to do that. Lance didn't doubt that Hunk was right for Yellow - not when the first thing he'd done was repair an alien drill to liberate his Lion and save Lance's life, without any piloting experience whatsoever. Blue had seen it in him too.

"Are you serious?!" Keith roared, "I found Blue for the same reason I met you, you… jackass! It was _destiny_. You were meant to pilot the Blue Lion. We were meant to be here, to fight as Voltron!" Keith grabbed at his upper arms, and Lance might have made a noise as bruises that he hadn't even thought about were squeezed in Keith's iron grip. "You were meant to be here with us! So stop with this- this self pity!"

Lance pushed at Keith awkwardly, unable to move his arms much with the way Keith was gripping him. Lance could break out of the grip if he moved his arms just right, but then this would turn into a fight. The urge to fight howled through him like a rush of steam through pipes, so he channeled it towards words.

"Really? Destiny?" Lance attempted to shout back. His voice wasn't as loud or as forceful as he wanted it to be, coming out in a low, raw growl instead. "That's what you're going with? There is no such thing. We met because you and Pidge were both obsessively scanning for the same thing, not because of destiny. _Excuuuuse me_ for needing a little time to-" Lance cut himself off with a frustrated hiss, biting down on the words that clamoured behind his teeth. _'To come to terms with getting the position **you'd** vacated **again** , to being second choice, to deal with being so damn replaceable, so pathetic, nothing, nothing.'_

"I'm not planning to stop being a Paladin! But Blue gets the final say on that." Lance paused, took a breath, and Shiro stepped into the gap he left by placing hand each on Keith and Lance's shoulder. Keith gave his arms one last squeeze before letting go, still glaring at him. It was only Shiro's hand that stopped him from leaning back in towards Keith, though Lance wasn't sure what he would do if he got closer - fight, start sobbing, beg...

"Blue gets the final say, and she- I think she's started rejecting me." Lance finished. There. He'd said it out loud now, it was real. The glare fell from Keith's face immediately, replaced by shocked understanding. Lance turned to face Shiro, ignoring the stunned look on their leader's face. "What if that's why I can't get her to fly right? I'm the problem, I know. She stops listening to me sometimes, but I'm working on it. I just need a bit more time flying with her, and we could get back to normal. But I don't think she's willing to wait that long-"

Shiro's expression hardened as he slid his hand up to grip Lance by the back of the neck.

"Listen to me carefully." Shiro spoke forcefully, leaving no room for Lance to look away. "I know for a fact that Blue is not rejecting you. It's not just my opinion. I know it."

Lance blinked stupidly at Shiro's face. Man, he was really close. If Lance pushed forwards, he could probably lick Shiro and escape in the confusion. But then he wouldn't know. Also, if he licked Shiro in front of Keith, he was pretty sure Keith would rip his tongue out and beat him to death with it.

"How do you know that?" Lance asked. Huh. Apart from how weirdly deep his voice had gone, it was surprisingly even.

"Someone whose opinion I hope you value asked me to talk to you." Shiro replied quietly. Lance felt like his stomach had dropped through the floor.

"Allura?" It was less a question, more a statement. But to his surprise, Shiro shook his head.

"No. The Blue Lion."

"Blue?" Lance's exclaimed, a much louder and higher pitch than he meant to. "Blue wanted you to talk to me? How do you know?"

Shiro let go of Lance's neck, although he still left a hand on his shoulder. Lance was grateful for the touch, using it to ground himself. "She had the Black Lion pass it on to me. I just didn't realise at the time - it wasn't until she reached out to Allura to ask for help that I even realised what she wanted. She's not rejecting you - she's trying to reach out to you, but she doesn't know how."

Lance… had no idea what to say to that. "I don't… understand," He admitted.

"You're the one who said it was like she was reacting to your subconscious, didn't you? I think that she's trying to do what you really want to do, trying to make that connection stronger." Shiro smiled, but it was twisted with self-condemnation. "Yesterday she was even trying to get our attention. Just small things, enough that we'd notice. I think… No, I know that she was hoping someone could comfort you, because she couldn't."

Lance had no idea how he felt about that. Not bad, not good. Kind of numb. He wanted desperately to believe Shiro, so he just… let himself. Maybe Shiro was making the whole thing up, but maybe he wasn't. It was true that Blue had tried to meet him halfway, really tried. So perhaps when she couldn't, she'd turned to the Black Lion and then to Allura. It sounded perfectly reasonable, and it let him believe that Blue was willing to keep trying. 

"I don't need to be comforted, Big Cat. I'm the problem," Lance pointed out, slightly more forcefully than he'd intended. It didn't hurt much. Maybe it had finally settled in his mind. "And I will fix it." he finished, voice softer.

Behind him he heard Hunk make a small frustrated sound before Lance felt him pressed up against one side, hands carefully on his hips. Trust Hunk to remember where every one of his bruises were. The sudden jolt knocked Lance into Shiro, who compensated by letting Lance rest his forehead against his shoulder. The hug was only slightly awkward, which Lance appreciated, since he didn't have the mental fortitude to do anything aside from slump against Shiro and sink into Hunk's touch.

"You belong here." Shiro insisted. "We all belong here. This is exactly where we are meant to be."

To Lance's surprise, Keith stepped behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder.

Any response died on Lance's tongue before they saw the light of day, interrupted when Pidge slid into the bathroom.

"Hey! Wow," Everyone stared at Pidge, hardly moving from the slightly more snuggled position they were all in. "Everyone's here with Lance already. So, I hate to interrupt the all man love-in going on here, but… Lance you need to come with me."

Lance looked at Pidge in confusion, but her emphatic wave was enough to draw him away. Pidge grabbed him by the wrist and began jogging towards the outer walls of the castle.

"Listen…" Pidge began. "So we were wondering where you were. And I figured… well, Blue can apparently sing to people now, so I might have figured she would find you… aaand, long story short, you need to get to the nearest balcony."

"What? Pidge, why?" Lance asked, working to keep

"Because right now, the Blue Lion is currently clinging to the outside of the wall closest to this bathroom, near the red tower side balcony." Pidge insisted.

"... Wait, what?" Lance took a moment to reply.

Pidge didn't say anything, instead choosing to drag him out to the room where the 'Balcony' was attached. Allura and Coran were already there, staring at the sealed window. On planets without a viable atmosphere or in the depths of space, the balcony window was completely sealed so that not even the cold from outside was able to reach inside the castle. The window was sealed now, and clinging to the side of the castle, peering into said window, was the Blue Lion.

Lance got the clear impression that the Blue Lion was currently gripping on to the outside of the castle like it were a giant scratching post.

"What the… Blue! What the hell are you even doing?" He shouted out, drawing the attention of Allura and Coran.

"Lance!" Allura sounded pleased to see him, which was already unusual. "I think someone's looking for you."

Lance couldn't think of a reply. His mind was suddenly filled with Blue's presence, music filling every corner of his thoughts. It was like suddenly remembering a song he'd never heard before.

_'I'll unfold before you, Would have strung together The very first words of a lifelong love letter'_

Without even realising, Lance found himself walking to the window and pressing himself against the glass. On the other side, Blue pressed her muzzle against the other side.

_'Tell the world that we finally got it all right. I choose you.'_

"Blue? Is… is that you?" Lance asked. In answer, he felt Blue rumble through his mind, her presence across his skin like a gentle tug, pulling him closer.

_'I will become yours and you will become mine. I choose you.'_

The songs was only half formed, lyrics fuzzy and unremembered, but it was still in his head. It wasn't anything he'd ever heard, so it had to come from Blue. And… Dammit, the past couple of days had worn him down, everything hitting him at once. He was tired, sad, maybe a little scared. He didn't even know this song. It sounded old, the kind of things his parent's wouldn't even listen to. How had Blue even heard it? Why had she remembered it? Why did any of that even matter?

_'There was a time when I would have believed them if they told me that you could not come true...'_

Lance heard a commotion behind him. Allura's voice gently called his name, asking him what was wrong, what was going on. Pidge's surprised questions died out even faster. Coran said nothing, choosing instead to step up beside Lance and rest a hand on his shoulder.

_'But then you found me and everything changed and I believe in something again…'_

None of that mattered. Not really. Not with tears rolling down his face completely against his will and Blue beaming old love-songs straight into his head. Lance wrapped his arms around himself, placing his hands over the phantom hands that Blue had pressed against his arms and leaning into the half imagined touch across his chest. Even the sharp desire not to break down in front of the princess didn't have enough sway to pull him back.

_'I'm sorry.'_ He thought towards Blue. _'Do you mean it?'_ He barely dared to ask.

Blue pressed her forehead against the window, the castle groaning under the pressure of it. Lance responded by pressing his forehead to the inside of the glass, smiling at Blue on other side. The song changed, something even more indistinct, barely any words coming through.

_'We all fall down like this sometimes, I'm trying to reach you... I'm never letting you go, because i'm dying to keep you.'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for taking up your time. But at least I've finally edited it.
> 
> The first song that Blue sings is "I Chose You" by Sara Bareilles. The second song that Blue sings, and the song that all the chapter titles / the story title / a whole lot of inspiration is taken from is "Reach" by the Butterfly effect.
> 
> I would encourage looking them up.


	5. Bonus scenes! Thoughtful hopes and peace of mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonus Scene time! Since this story was so darn long, I have 2. 
> 
> The first was something I originally wanted in the chapter itself, but sadly couldn't properly add in. The flow was just ALL wrong.
> 
> The second is just for the lulz.

Keith, Hunk, and Shiro all found themselves staring after Lance as he was dragged out of the room by an enthusiastic Pidge. As one they turned to look at each other, Hunk even giving Shiro a nod that they all took as their cue to follow.

At least, Keith thought that's what they were doing until Hunk stopped him in the hallway with a gentle hand on his shoulder. Keith spared a look for Shiro, still following Pidge and Lance, before turning to Hunk.

"Hey, how are you doing?" Hunk asked, eyes soft with concern. Keith carefully blinked to cover what he was worried would turn out to be wide eyed surprise.

"I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

"You just seem a little..." Hunk hesitated, looking inward for a moment as he searched his mind for the right word. "Angry, I guess. I want to make sure you're OK."

Keith, not for the first time, felt a strange mix of impressed and embarrassed at some of the other Paladins' ability to read him so well. He'd always been told he was hard to read, although some used the word 'mysterious' instead. It amounted to the same.

"Sorry." Keith said. Hunk didn't let go, so he continued. "I just kept saying the wrong thing, I have no idea how. And then, the way he was talking just -" Keith felt his hands clench as the anger rose up again, so he opened them wide, made them relax, closed his eyes, and forced himself to calm down. Hunk was rubbing soothing circles into his shoulder, which helped.

"Talking about Blue calling you but picking Lance to be her pilot?" Hunk asked kindly. And of course Hunk would ask that. Whatever else, Hunk always wanted to know more about people.

Keith nodded, pushing himself to continue talking despite wanting to beat a quick retreat from this conversation.

"I'd been in that cave before, seen all the carvings. I knew I'd been called there, but then some idiot with a grudge against me for no reason makes them light up like magic. Just... touches things and they obey his will. I thought maybe there was something in his genetics, like he might be part alien, or maybe he was an ESPer or... I don't really know. It wasn't until Allura said that the lions choose their own Pilots that I realised there wasn't anything specifically special about him, except that the Blue Lion liked him more."

Hunk nodded as Keith spoke, as though he understood. "I remember that you said you felt like something was asking you to search, right? And then you found Blue's cave and all the stuff inside, and that's what told you when Shiro was coming back."

"Exactly!" Keith waved his arm out to the side, only now noticing that he'd leaned in closer to Hunk as he talked. "I found Blue's hiding place, and I worked out what the drawings were trying to tell me, and... then Allura suggested that I should pilot the Red Lion instead. And I don't regret it, I don't. I'm glad."

Was he really going to say this? He still felt a little raw after shouting at Lance and seeing the normally happy Paladin look so devastated. Really, after the day he'd just had in general, he'd need to train for a full day just to process everything that had happened.

But Hunk was in front of him, eyes still watery from earlier and a hand still on his shoulder, quietly asking him to continue. And he didn't really want to say no.

No wonder Hunk could apparently get anyone into bed. How do you say no to those eyes?

"But there was a moment. Just... a small one," Keith continued, looking over to the wall as he focused his thoughts back to his first day in space. "When the Red Lion wouldn't open up, and I got sucked out into space... There was a part of me that thought... of course. Of course it wouldn't want me. No one wants me. Allura was wrong, I didn't have what it takes to save the universe. I didn't belong here"

Keith found himself smiling as the memory continued. "But then the Red Lion moved on her own, broke out of the ship, and came to me. Saved me. And as I pulled myself into the pilot's seat, it felt like it was apologising, telling me... that this was finally enough." With a steadying breath, Keith turned back to Hunk. "It was just... infuriating to hear those thoughts being said by Lance of all people. It was so easy for Lance, he hadn't even known what he was doing and Blue just... accepted him instantly, even opened up the ground itself to bring him down to meet her. How could he think, even for a second, that he didn't belong here?"

Keith stopped there. Any further and he risked giving voice to the dark and ugly feeling that had been rising up within him, the thing that he'd wanted the anger to burn out of him.

The thought that, if Lance were right, then Keith had been called because he specifically was _wanted_ by Blue. She had believed in his ability, believed that he belonged here from the start, and only stepped aside because there was something Keith could do that no-one else could. That he was someone's first choice. He hated that thought, knowing it came at Lance's expense. He didn't want that - he needed Lance to belong here with him, to also be chosen. He needed all of them to belong here, or it wasn't right.

His thoughts were interrupted by gentle hands tugging him forwards. He planted his arms on Hunk's chest as he stumbled into him before solid arms wrapped around him.

"We definitely want you here." Hunk sniffed. Keith felt himself tense up as he realised that Hunk was actually crying. "Remember, we're bros now."

Trust Hunk to be sad on his behalf because of something Keith had thought for only a moment. He slowly let himself relax and rest his forehead against Hunk's shoulder, despite keeping his hands up to make sure there wasn't too much contact.

He nearly jumped when he felt Hunk petting his head.

"Sorry man!" Hunk apologised quickly, loosening his grip enough to let Keith step back if he wanted. "Your hair was getting up my nose, and I didn't want to break the hug yet 'cause... uh..." He stepped back, dropping his hands to twist in front of him nervously. "To be honest, I kind of just want a hug right now. And apparently my usual huggle-buddy was abducted by Pidge, and is a mostly covered in bruises at the moment."

"He didn't look that bad," Keith immediately countered. He'd seen Lance look so much worse after all, and not just because he'd just avoided being blown up. It was always a little startling to see bruises splashed on what his mind always assumed was smooth tanned skin all the way down, but it wasn't completely unexpected.

Hunk still pressed his lips together in a hard line, telling him clearly without words that he did not agree with Keith's assessment.

"Would... uh, will Lance mind if you hug me instead?" Keith asked. Sure it was just a hug, but Keith didn't want to overstep any boundaries here. Hunk looked at him like he was ridiculous though, so perhaps it really was a silly question. Especially since he'd seen Hunk hug Shiro earlier that morning. Except... well, that was Shiro.

"Lance doesn't have exclusive hugging rights on me, you know," Hunk pointed out lightly.

"I know," Keith responded, trying to convey exactly how much he knew in those two words. Hunk blinked owlishly at him. Right. Not successfully conveyed then.

He stepped decisively back towards Hunk, hands returning to rest in their previous position between him and Hunk's chest. Hunk responded quickly by giving him a squeeze and raising one hand to...

Oh.

Oh, that was _good_. One of Hunk's hands came up to rest on Keith's head, he assumed to prevent Hunk from inhaling his hair again. The weight was strangely nostalgic, but while that was nice, it was when Hunk's fingers started to make light scratching motions against his scalp that Keith felt himself relax almost entirely against his will.

His reaction did not go unnoticed by Hunk, who shook slightly with a huff of laughter.

"We should get Lance to give you a scalp rub," Hunk commented. "He's super good at them."

"You really think I want to let him anywhere near my head?" Keith countered, talking into Hunk's chest. "You've heard the way he talks about my hair, right?"

"Pfft." Hunk responded eloquently. "Your hair is fine. Besides, he's got a real talent for it. It'd be a shame _not_ to share that talent, wouldn't it?"

Keith hummed. It took a few moments for his brain to replay that sentence for him and poke through the relaxed haze to hit him with anything beyond a surface meaning.

He really needed to stop dissecting every comment Hunk made. Hunk - sweet, kind Hunk - was absolutely not suggesting that Lance share any talent besides head rubs (no, scalp rubs, Dammit). Certainly not with Keith specifically. Keith's brain was just fixated. Besides, even if Shiro had really been Lance's idea...

Keith pressed his face firmly into Hunk's shoulder, both to hide any rising flush and to encourage his brain specifically not to think about it. Especially not to come up with any mental images of Lance's talent being used on anyone. His brain countered by helpfully pointing out that Hunk's fingers felt really, really good right now, and this was his hair. What would Hunk be able to do with...

Nope. Stop now.

And Lance was better?

Right, Keith was disengaging his brain. He didn't need it right now anyway.

* * *

Lance was curled up in his pilot's chair, knees slung over one arm rest. In his head, Blue was playing with her new-found ability to beam music directly into his brain. Lance indulged her by singing along to the lyrics.

It was so weird to suddenly feel like he was remembering the words to a song he was positive he'd never heard before.

It seemed like she'd managed to listen in to some radio frequencies during her time in captivity, although she hadn't kept everything and several of the early years had been spent trying to decode what she was hearing. Add to that a missing piece when radio had switched over to digital signals and she had to re-work things out again, and that still left her with decades and decades worth of radio broadcasts to remember.

While a special few seemed to have taken her fancy, most of what she remembered was the stuff she'd heard over and over again.

_I love myself, I want you to love me._

"Blue, I'm not singing that." Lance poked at the console.

 _When I feel down, I want you above me._ Blue continued, clearly not caring. _I search myself, I want you to find me._

Lance could feel Blue pressing around his body like arms that rocked along with the music, like she was trying to draw him into a dance. Occasionally the feeling would be replaced with soft paws batting against his ears and tickling him. 

Apparently none of the other pilots felt like their lions could touch them, although Keith was pretty sure Red used a magnetic field or temperature difference to direct him sometimes.

Yellow, bizarrely, often tapped into Hunk's sense of smell to pass on information. Lance still had absolutely no idea how they communicated anything through smell alone, but hey - whatever worked for them.

_I forget myself, I want you to remind me._

"Isn't this about masturbation? I'm sure I remember hearing that this was about masturbation."

_I don't want anybody else! When I think about you, I touch myself!_

If anything the song rang through his mind with even more gusto. Blue had always been playful, but right now she was clearly thrilled to bits. 

Lance laughed happily, despite himself.

"Ooh, I don't want anybody else, oh no, oh no, oh no."

_You're the one who makes me come..._

"... running." Lance completed before noticing the silence. He replayed the last line before slapping the console with the back of his hand. 

"Oi! Stop that, you minx." 

The purr that rolled through his mind sounded far more like a giggle. 


End file.
